Preamble

The House met at Eleven o'clock

[Mr. SPEAKER in the Chair]

PRAYERS

NEW WRIT

For Montgomery, in the room of the right honourable Clement Edward Davies, Q.C., deceased.—[Mr. Wade.]

Oral Answers to Questions — COLONIAL TERRITORIES

Tristan Islanders (Resettlement)

Mr. G. M. Thomson: asked the Secretary of State for the Colonies whether he is now in a position to report on the adequacy of the resettlement arrangements at Calshot for the Tristan da Cunha islanders.

The Secretary of State for the Colonies (Mr. Reginald Maudling): The Tristan islanders are comfortably resettled in homes at Calshot which have been furnished and equipped for them. Over 90 per cent. of those seeking employment have been placed in jobs and are receiving the full benefits of the health and social services. The children were absorbed into local schools within two days of their arrival at Calshot and have settled down very well.

Mr. Thomson: While welcoming what has been done to overcome the difficult problems of adaptation here, may I ask the right hon. Gentleman whether he has noticed reports that some of the islanders appear to want to go back home if possible? Can he give any information on this and will he ensure that everything is done finally to meet their own desires in the matter?

Mr. Maudling: I think that it is true that a number of them feel homesick and want to go back. I believe that running into one of the worst winters for a long time has not helped. I am keeping a close eye on the situation.

Annual Reports (Publication)

Mr. G. M. Thomson: asked the Secretary of State for the Colonies if he is aware that the annual colonial reports in respect of St. Vincent, Basutoland and Bechuanaland for the year 1959 were published in January 1962; and what steps he is taking to ensure that colonial reports are published more expeditiously.

Mr. Maudling: Every effort is made to publish these reports as soon as possible after the period to which they refer. We depend of course on the Governments concerned for the timely dispatch of their reports to Britain.
The first of the reports in question was printed in this country; the other two were printed locally and sent to Britain by sea for binding. Given the pressure on exiguous staffs and no less exiguous printing facilities in the territories concerned, I should prefer not to interfere with present arrangements.

Mr. Thomson: Would the right hon. Gentleman do something to try to close this very long gap? Does he not agree that in these days when events move so quickly in independent territories, particularly in High Commission Territories, these reports are rather useless by the time they reach us? Can he do something to speed them up?

Mr. Maudling: I am rather disturbed about the time taken and I will look into the possibility of speeding this up.

Sir J. Vaughan-Morgan: Is my right hon. Friend aware that these reports often contain matter which is repeated from one edition to the next? Would he consider embodying this in the annual report of the independent territories and merely issuing a sort of interim report of what has happened since the last annual report? I think that he would then find publication considerably speeded.

Mr. Maudling: I am grateful for that helpful suggestion.

Riot (Damages) Act, 1886

Mr. Maxwell-Hyslop: asked the Secretary of State for the Colonies, in which territories under his jurisdiction there is in force no legislation analogous to the Riot (Damages) Act, 1886; and


what action he takes to draw to the attention of the governments of Colonial Territories about to achieve independence the desirability of passing such legislation.

Mr. Maudling: The Bahamas, British Honduras and Jamaica—and also St. Helena where the United Kingdom Statute is in force—appear to be the only overseas territories for which I am responsible which have Statutes analagous to the Riot (Damages) Act, 1886, of the United Kingdom. However, other territories may have corresponding provisions as part of their general legislation dealing with the maintenance of public order, and I am having inquiries made to ascertain those territories in which such provisions are in force.
I will consider the suggestion in the second part of the Question.

Oral Answers to Questions — ZANZIBAR

Constitutional Conference

Mr. Brockway: asked the Secretary of State for the Colonies if he will make a statement on the conclusions of the Zanzibar constitutional conference.

Mr. Maudling: I would refer the hon. Member to the reply which I gave to the hon. Member for Dundee, East (Mr. G. M. Thomson) on 12th April. The report of the Conference was published on 17th April (Cmnd. 1699).

Mr. Brockway: I was aware of that earlier. In view of the rather dangerous situation in Zanzibar, may I ask the right hon. Gentleman whether he would not make a further effort to try to reach an agreement between Government and Opposition parties? Whilst it is difficult to get parties to coalesce if they do not want to do so, the right hon. Gentleman succeeded in Kenya. Cannot he make a new effort in Zanzibar?

Mr. Maudling: The British Resident will be continuing his efforts and I am sure that he is the person best placed to bring about success. It was quite impossible at the recent conference to secure agreement, but I very much hope that the parties will find the way to agreement in the near future.

Oral Answers to Questions — SWAZILAND

Constitution

Mr. Brockway: asked the Secretary of State for the Colonies what conclusions have now been reached following consultations with officials and the National Council of Swaziland regarding the future constitution of that territory.

Mr. Maudling: I have nothing to add to the Answer which my hon. Friend gave the hon. Member for Dundee, East (Mr. G. M. Thomson) on 5th April, except that on 10th April the Resident Commissioner, Swaziland, announced that the people of Swaziland are to be given another two months—i.e. until the end of June—for public study of the constitutional question.

Mr. Brockway: I thank the right hon. Gentleman for that Answer. Is it not the case that there is outside the European Advisory Council and the National Council a very strong demand for a democratic constitution in Swaziland, and will the right hon. Gentleman encourage that and co-operate in its realisation?

Mr. Maudling: I will not comment on the strength of demands of particular sections of the community. I think that the processes that we have in operation at the moment will enable us to gauge better and more accurately exactly what the people want.

Sir H. Harrison: Will my right hon. Friend bear in mind the very peaceful existence and lack of any disputes or troubles in Swaziland and see that this is not easily overthrown in the new constitution, when the methods of the past have been so successful there?

Mr. Maudling: I do not want to introduce new methods unless they are an improvement on the old.

Mr. H. Hynd: Will the right hon. Gentleman take steps to see that any new constitution does not lead to control by Afrikanders who are flooding into the country?

Mr. Maudling: I think that is rather a remote possibility, but I should prefer to study it.

Oral Answers to Questions — KENYA

Agriculture (Resettlement Schemes)

Mr. Wall: asked the Secretary of State for the Colonies what progress is being made in the various agricultural resettlement schemes in Kenya; and to what extent these are being financed from British funds, from the World Bank or from local sources.

Mr. Goodhart: asked the Secretary of State for the Colonies (1) how many African families have been resettled on European-owned farms in Kenya under official schemes since the beginning of 1961;
(2) how many acres of European-owned farmland have been purchased for African resettlement under official schemes since the beginning of 1961.

Mr. Maudling: Twenty-six thousand acres have so far been bought for the economic smallholder schemes and settlement started with some 730 families: and 54 projects involving the purchase of nearly 18,000 acres have been approved under the yeoman schemes. These are the schemes which the International Bank is helping to finance. In addition, 140,000 acres have been bought for the new smallholder schemes for the settlement over the coming months of some 3,200 families.
The total cost of these schemes is estimated at about £13¼ million, towards which the International Bank has agreed to lend £3 million and the Colonial Development Corporation £1½ million. Her Majesty's Government have undertaken to provide at least £7½ million and it is hoped that the Federal German Government may also participate.

Mr. Wall: Would my right hon Friend agree that unless the problem is tackled on a massive scale these schemes will make little impact? What is needed is a really impressive scheme for the purchase of at least 1 million acres for African resettlement and that it should be done by this summer at the latest.

Mr. Maudling: This particular scheme is a substantial one and the difficulty from the time point of view is not so much the availability of money as getting the land and people qualified to take

it up. I know that there are claims for much larger land resettlement. I have been approached from Kenya on this and I am not yet in a position to make a reply.

Mr. Goodhart: Can my right hon. Friend say when he will be in a position to make some reply to these very modest proposals which are put forward by the settlers in Kenya, because this problem is extremely urgent, and, as my hon. Friend the Member for Haltemprice (Mr. Wall) has said, we really must get a move on this year?

Mr. Maudling: As to my hon. Friend's definition of "very modest", when £30 million or £40 million are involved, it seems to be a very substantial degree of modesty.

Mr. Prior: With regard to the Federal German contribution, is the Minister aware that at the Koenigswinter Conference held recently the West Germans expressed a desire to help more in the under-developed countries of the world, and if he will press that with the Germans I think that he will have a favourable response?

Mr. Maudling: I am grateful to the hon. Member for that. We certainly are pressing the Germans to help in these East African Territories and I am quite hopeful that we shall get substantial assistance.

Sir H. Harrison: Can my right hon. Friend assure us that with this resettlement the agricultural advisory services will be extended because resettlement alone, without the knowledge of how to make the best use of the land and raise greater crops, is of little use?

Mr. Maudling: We are in a bit of a dilemma here. Clearly, one wants to get people farming on resettlement land who will farm as efficiently as possible. On the other hand, this tends to slow things up and, as other hon. Members have pointed out, the need for speed is very great.

Public Service (Africanisation)

Mr. Healey: asked the Secretary of State for the Colonies what progress is being made with the Africanisation of posts in the public service in Kenya.

Mr. Maudling: On 1st July, 1960, there were 637 Africans in grades higher than clerical scales. By 1st April, 1962, this number had reached 1,243. By the end of July, 1962, the number of African District Officers will rise to approximately 100. The total number of African Administrative Officers of all grades will then be more than 200. Four African District Commissioners are in full charge of Districts and further appointments will be made following completion of training in July of this year. By January, 1963, at least twelve District Commissioner posts will be held by Africans.

Mr. Healey: This report is definitely encouraging, but will the right hon. Gentleman comment on the very disturbing reports which have appeared recently in, for example, The Times that in many respects progess in Africanisation is deplorably slow? Will be agree that the hold-up and difficulties facing Kenya in achieving a political solution to her problems could be greatly eased if there was acceleration in the Africanisation of the Administration itself?

Mr. Maudling: I think that this is one of the mose difficult problems in Kenya. I am not sure that the cure for it is solely Africanisation. We want to produce a local Civil Service including all races living in Kenya. The problem in connection with Africanisation is mainly that of education, and we hope that the efforts in education which have been made in Kenya recently will bear fruit soon. But it would be a great mistake to Africanise at such a rate as to undermine the efficiency of the service.

Mr. Wall: Is my right hon. Friend aware that unless and until an adequate scheme for non-designated officers is worked out there is not likely to be a very good atmosphere for co-operation in Africanisation or development of a local Civil Service?

Mr. Maudling: I do not think that will follow. The problem about Africanisation is to find people of sufficient education to handle the task.

Oral Answers to Questions — BRITISH GUIANA

Riot Damage

Mr. Maxwell-Hyslop: asked the Secretary of State for the Colonies what requests for financial assistance Her Majesty's Government have received

from the Government of British Guiana to enable claims arising from damage suffered in the recent riots to be met in full.

Mr. Maudling: None, Sir.

Mr. Maxwell-Hyslop: While I thank my right hon. Friend for that somewhat foreshortened reply, may I ask my right hon. Friend whether he is confident that the resources available to the Government of British Guiana are sufficient to meet all reasonable claims resulting from the riots?

Mr. Maudling: I do not think that that is a matter for me. British Guiana is now internally self-governing and it is really for them to deal with this matter. The question asked whether any claims had been put to us. None has been put to us.

Mr. G. M. Thomson: May I ask the right hon. Gentleman whether he has yet set up the commission of inquiry on these riots?

Mr. Maudling: Not yet. I hope to get some names firmly settled in the course of a few days.

Mr. Maxwell-Hyslop: Is my right hon. Friend aware that I wrote to the Secretary of State for Commonwealth Relations on this matter and that the letter was passed to my right hon. Friend? Can he, therefore, explain his lack of responsibility in this context?

Mr. Maudling: Yes, Sir. British Guiana is a fully internally self-governing Colony.

Oral Answers to Questions — ADEN

Qat (Import and Sale)

Mr. Sorensen: asked the Secretary of State for the Colonies if qat is now freely imported and sold in Aden Colony and Protectorates; whether any official investigation has been held into the alleged deleterious effect of this drug; and whether the desirability or otherwise of restricting the consumption of qat has ever been debated by the Colony Legislative Council.

Mr. Maudling: There has never been any restriction on the import and sale of qat in Aden Protectorate. In Aden


Colony it may now be imported and sold under licence. The Report of the Qat Commission of Inquiry of 1958 stated, on medical evidence, that qat, unless used to excess, is not injurious to health. A United Nations Technical Assistance Mission in Narcotics Control has just visited Aden; its Report has not yet been received. Restriction of qat consumption has been frequently debated by the Aden Colony Legislative Council, both before its import was banned in 1957, and since the ban was lifted in 1958.

Mr. Sorensen: Is it not true that any drug taken in excess is deleterious and that qat has a certain deleterious effect? Reports have been made that it has done very great injury to the health of large numbers of people and in fact has led to about £2 million economic loss to the Colony? In these circumstances, cannot this matter be looked at more carefully?

Mr. Maudling: We shall await with interest the report of the United Nations Mission. I must say that if we set about banning the use of everything which if taken in excess is harmful, it would be a pretty dull life.

Mr. Dugdale: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that I personally have spent an entire evening consuming qat with absolutely no effect, good, bad or indifferent?

Mr. Sorensen: Is my right hon. Friend aware that I was present when my right hon. Friend chewed qat, and it was for only about ten minutes?

Education

Mr. Sorensen: asked the Secretary of State for the Colonies if conditions in the educational institutions of Aden Colony are now quiet; and whether consideration has been given to the suggested formation of parent-teacher organisations.

Mr. Maudling: All educational institutions are functioning normally except the Girls' College which has not yet been reopened: the Colony Government is considering when it can be reopened. As I stated in reply to the hon. Member's Question on 22nd February, parents' committees exist for boys'

schools: for the Aden Girls' College it has now been accepted in principle that the parents' committee should be re-instituted.

Mr. Sorensen: Is it not a fact that this school is still closed and has been closed for some time, and that it is not likely to be reopened for some time in the future? In these circumstances, can a report be made on this closed girls' school?

Mr. Maudling: There was a report, which, I believe, was put in the Library, on the previous occurrences there. What is retarding the opening of the school is staffing difficulties. There are no other difficulties. As soon as these have been solved the school will be reopened.

Mr. G. M. Thomson: Will the right hon. Gentleman take a personal interest to get this very important school reopened? This report of the troubles there was a very good report which seemed to deal with the problems that have arisen. It is surprising that the school has not been opened by this time.

Mr. Maudling: I certainly will take a personal interest.

Oral Answers to Questions — HIGH COMMISSION TERRITORIES

Bechuanaland and Basutoland (Political Refugees)

Mr. Healey: asked the Secretary of State for the Colonies if he will amend the Entrance and Residence Proclamations of Bechuanaland and of Basutoland to ensure that bona fide political refugees from the Republic of South Africa are given secure political asylum, and that agents of the South Africa police are refused entrance.

Mr. Maudling: No, Sir. I think we should leave to the inhabitants of Basutoland and the Bechuanaland Protectorate, in accordance with the Constitutions of those territories, the initiative in deciding whether to amend their immigration laws. So far as I am aware these laws are not unsatisfactory

Mr. Healey: Would not the right hon. Gentleman agree that the recent case of Mrs. Mafeking underlines the need to amend these declarations in order to


give bona fide political refugees greater security than they evidently have at present in these Protectorates?

Mr. Maudling: As far as I can recall offhand, that case is still subject to appeal and it would be wrong for me to comment on it. But it seems to me that in general the provisions are satisfactory.

Mr. Brockway: Is the right hon. Gentleman really satisfied? Is he not aware that many of us are receiving a considerable number of letters, particularly from Basutoland? Is it not the case that refugees from the Republic of South Africa who are there have no security and no guarantee about being allowed to remain there? Is it not often the case that the interference which they suffer is an aristocratic traditional interference rather than something representing the mind of the people of Basutoland?

Mr. Maudling: I do not think I would accept that. If the hon. Member has letters from people. I shall be glad to examine them if he will send them to me.

Oral Answers to Questions — MALTA

Constitution

Sir W. Teeling: asked the Secretary of State for the Colonies when he proposes to implement the decisions reached by himself and the Prime Minister of Malta concerning alterations in the Malta Constitution.

Mr. Wall: asked the Secretary of State for the Colonies when the amendments to the Malta Constitution agreed with Dr. Borg Olivier will come into effect.

Mr. Maudling: An amending Order in Council will be made as soon as possible.

Sir W. Teeling: Does my right hon. Friend realise that it will be very difficult for the Prime Minister of Malta to get on with this job, from the economic point of view especially, unless the Constitution is altered? Would it not be possible for my right hon. Friend to make alterations before the Prime Minister calls Parliament together, which will be in a week or ten days' time?

Mr. Maudling: It would be quite impossible. The alterations would have to be drafted and submitted to a meeting of the Privy Council. Frankly, I cannot see that there is the slightest hindrance to the important task of carrying on economic functions in Malta before the changes are made.

Mr. Wall: Will my right hon. Friend say whether he has in mind further talks on constitutional developments for Malta or, what is more important, financial aid and economic planning?

Mr. Maudling: I have had discussions with the Prime Minister of Malta and we have agreed that at a later date we shall have further talks on both points.

Sir P. Agnew: Can my right hon. Friend say that in the light of the proposed amendments there is now every opportunity for Malta to go ahead within the framework of the Constitution and establish herself as a viable State with a future?

Mr. Maudling: Yes, Sir; there is every opportunity and every necessity for that.

Legal Secretary (Compensation)

Sir W. Teeling: asked the Secretary of State for the Colonies why the Legal Secretary of Malta is to be given over £10,000 on leaving Malta; why the new Malta Government has been asked to pay this sum; how long he has been employed in Malta; what has been his salary; and whether this sum is free of tax.

Mr. Maudling: Mr. Stephens, who has been a member of the Overseas Civil Service since 1946, had been in the service of the Malta Government since 1957. His pensionable salary was £2,800 a year, subject to Malta income tax. As a result of the introduction of the new Constitution in Malta his post was abolished. Consequently, in accordance with the principles set out in Colonial No. 306, published in 1954, and Command 1193, published in 1960, he became eligible for compensation for loss of career, payable by the Government which employed him. The compensation paid to Mr. Stephens was determined on the advice of the Government Actuary in the United Kingdom.

Sir W. Teeling: Does not my right hon. Friend think that this is really


rather an excessive sum to pay to a man who has been in Malta only just over three years, all during the time when there was no Malta Government and only what was provided by the Colonial Office? Does not this gentleman also receive a pension from his ordinary job? Also, is he not able to be employed somewhere else?

Mr. Maudling: Mr. Stephens has been treated like every other member of the Overseas Civil Service, and his compensation, according to the principle constantly approved by the House, was determined by the Government Actuary. I think that that is absolutely right and is in accordance with practice generally in the Overseas Civil Service.

Mr. Healey: Would not the right hon. Gentleman agree, although this raises a difficult question, that it is very undesirable that at the present stage in the development of Colonial Territories new colonial Governments should be saddled with the total responsibility for paying compensation on this scale? This is a problem which is as serious in East Africa and other territories as it is in Malta. Will not the right hon. Gentleman have another look at the whole problem and see whether it would not be possible for Her Majesty's Government at least to accept some part of the burden for compensating such personnel?

Mr. Maudling: That is another and wider question but I will certainly consider it. In this case, Mr. Stephens, like other civil servants, has been working on the basis of certain things to which he is entitled, and we must make quite sure that such persons get their entitlements.

Mr. Farr: Will my right hon. Friend confirm whether the sum actually is tax-free?

Mr. Maudling: Yes, Sir. In all cases these sums are made tax-free by the Finance Act, 1960.

Oral Answers to Questions — EDUCATION

Haverfordwest Grammar School

Mr. Donnelly: asked the Minister of Education when he proposes to commence the new buildings of the Haverfordwest Grammar School.

The Minister of Education (Sir David Eccles): Pembrokeshire Local Education Authority hopes to start work on this school in the current financial year.

Mr. Donnelly: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that I welcome what he has said? Is he also aware that there is a proposal—a threat, I might say—that in the intervening period the boys may have to use the Liberal Club in Haverfordwest? Will he give an assurance that no such terrible eventuality will take place?

Sir D. Eccles: I share the feelings of the hon. Gentleman on that point.

Educational Psychologists, Cornwall

Mr. Scott-Hopkins: asked the Minister of Education how many educational psychologists are employed in the county of Cornwall; and what are their rates of pay.

Sir D. Eccles: Three. One is paid on a scale rising from £1,810 to £2,170 and the two others—one of whom takes up his duties next month—on a scale rising from £1,510 to £1,810.

Mr. Scott-Hopkins: Is my right hon. Friend satisfied that these scales of pay are adequate considering the urgent need to recruit more educational psychologists not only in Cornwall but throughout the country?

Sir D. Eccles: I am glad to say that the lower scale has now attracted a psychologist to fill the third place, and I hope that that will help the county.

Day Release

Mr. Prentice: asked the Minister of Education what steps he is taking to secure an expansion of day-release arrangements for apprentices and other employees undergoing training; and whether he will introduce legislation to make it compulsory for employers to grant day release in cases where the trainee applies for it and is acceptable to the appropriate college.

Sir D. Eccles: I shall shortly have the results of an inquiry into the practical implications of giving young workers under 18 a statutory right to day release.


I propose then to have further discussions with the national organisations concerned about this and other possible methods of extending day release, and I will keep the hon. Member's proposal in mind.

Mr. Prentice: While I welcome the indication that this is still under consideration, might I ask whether it has not been under consideration for a very long time? Will the Minister agree to approach this matter with a somewhat greater sense of urgency, bearing in mind that the nation cannot afford the wastage involved and the fact that there is a hard core of employers who will not grant day release and that this is terribly unfair to the boys and girls concerned?

Sir D. Eccles: I remitted this study to a committee of officers of my Ministry and representatives of national organisations, including the T.U.C. It held its first meeting in June last, but found that some detailed statistical work was needed. This work is now completed and I hope to have the committee's report next month.

Mr. Scott-Hopkins: Can my right hon. Friend say what progress he has made in arranging day release in agricultural areas, because I understand that there has been difficulty in the past about farmworkers being granted day release?

Sir D. Eccles: I am glad to tell my hon. Friend that day release in agricultural areas is improving rapidly. We need the help of farmers in this.

Educational Research

Mr. Albu: asked the Minister of Education how it is proposed to spend the sum of £20,000 which he is making available for the promotion of educational research.

Sir D. Eccles: I have offered £5,000 a year for three years to the Educational Foundation for Visual Aids towards the running costs of its new experimental development unit; £16,000 over four years to the National Foundation for Educational Research for research into the relative merits of block release and day release; about £12,000 over three years to Sheffield University for research into the logical programming of mathematics syllabuses; and about £9,500 over four years to

Manchester University for a sociological study in grammar schools.
I expect that the actual grants in 1962–63 for these projects will total about £12,000. I am considering a number of other applications.

Mr. Albu: Are not these a very small number of projects for such a vast undertaking as our education service? Will the Minister have another look at the whole question which, I realise, we are to debate later today, to see if a good deal more money can be provided?

Sir D. Eccles: I would ask the hon. Gentleman to wait for the debate.

Mr. B. Harrison: Can my right hon. Friend explain how the large sum of money he has just detailed reaches the total of £20,000? If his estimates are to be as much at variance as that, we shall get into trouble with the Ministry of Education Vote.

Sir D. Eccles: The reason is that these are projects covering three or four years and in the first year the contribution is not required to be very great. We estimate that for all those projects I detailed only £12,000 will be required out of the £20,000 in the first year.

Language Teaching (French-Speaking Assistants)

Mr. Boyden: asked the Minister of Education, in view of the demand from secondary schools for modern language assistants, why more French-speaking Belgian and Swiss assistants are not engaged to assist with French teaching in schools.

Sir D. Eccles: Any increase in the number of French-speaking assistants from Belgium and Switzerland would be very welcome and I have made this known to the authorities in those countries.

Mr. Boyden: Does the Minister conduct a recruiting campaign in these countries? Is he allowed to do so? The number at the moment is pitiful—less than two dozen altogether. Is there any financial or foreign exchange difficulty?

Sir D. Eccles: I will have to look into the second part of that supplementary question but certainly, through our


officers, we make it known that we should like to have these young assistants. I am glad to be able to tell the hon. Gentleman that we have just got two from French-speaking Canada.

Teachers

Mr. Boyden: asked the Minister of Education how many teachers over the age of 65 are currently teaching in local authority schools; and how this number compares with those on a comparable date in 1959.

Sir D. Eccles: In March of last year, 1,048 teachers aged 65 and over were teaching in maintained primary and secondary schools. The corresponding figure for 1959 was 1,429.

Mr. Boyden: This is very unsatisfactory. Cannot the right hon. Gentleman induce his colleagues in the Treasury to provide some financial inducement for teachers over 65—or, perhaps, a substantial pensions inducement—because this is one of the sources, for the time being, anyway, from which we might get people to stay on.

Sir D. Eccles: It is not very clear why the numbers have fallen and I am looking into that matter, but I think it is generally recognised in the House that abatement of pensions on account of earnings is a subject on which there is a general principle throughout the public service and we could not make an exception for teachers.

Frondeg Secondary Modern School, Pwllheli

Mr. G. Roberts: asked the Minister of Education if he is aware of the over crowding in the Frondeg Secondary Modern School, Pwllheli, Caernarvonshire; and what steps he proposes to take to alleviate the position.

Sir D. Eccles: Yes, Sir. The rebuilding of the school will be considered for inclusion in the major school building programme for 1964–65.

Mr. Roberts: Is the Minister aware that his Answer will cause disappointment in South Caernarvonshire? This school has been overcrowded for many years and classes have to be taken in the corridors. Was not a new secondary modern school promised to the town for

this year? Will the right hon. Gentleman review the position with the intention of providing a new school in next year's list?

Sir D. Eccles: I wish I could, but as things stand I have allocated the whole of the money available for next year.

Troedyrallt Primary School, Pwllheli

Mr. G. Roberts: asked the Minister of Education if he is aware of the difficulties that have arisen in Pwllheli, Caernarvonshire, as a result of the recent destruction by fire of Troedyrallt Primary School; and what plans he has to meet the situation.

Sir D. Eccles: Yes, Sir. I am waiting for proposals from the local education authority to meet the school's difficulties.

Mr. Roberts: Is not the Minister already aware that an emergency has arisen in this respect and that these primary school children, about 200 of them, have had to be accommodated in various halls scattered all over the town owning to the destruction of their school by fire? Is he aware that these halls are seriously deficient of lavatory and washroom facilities so that the children must seek out the public conveniences in the town? Does this not constitute a case for priority action by his Department?

Sir D. Eccles: I am very well aware of these difficulties and I think it is time that the local authority came forward with proposals. It is for the local authority to make proposals, whether for temporary huts or for any other form of accommodation.

Mr. Roberts: Does not the right hon. Gentleman's inspectorate inform his Department of an emergency of this kind, without the local authority having to make an approach?

Sir D. Eccles: Naturally my inspectorate told me that the school had been burnt down. I then awaited the local authority's proposals for meeting the emergency.

Albemarle Report

Mr. Willey: asked the Minister of Education whether he will now make a further statement on recommendations 16 and 35 of the Albemarle Report.

Sir D. Eccles: My right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer is discussing with the Ministers concerned the action which should be taken following his reference in his Budget Speech to a modest start in making good the deficiencies pointed out by the Wolfenden Report on Sport.
The House will be informed shortly of the results of these discussions.

Mr. Willey: Will the Minister be a bit more on-coming than that? The Treasury's ban was a serious handicap in implementing the Albemarle Report. Will the right hon. Gentleman celebrate the lifting of the ban by assuring us that every advantage will be taken to provide these facilities for youth?

Sir D. Eccles: I am in discussion with my right hon. Friend and I ask the House to wait until we can make a statement.

School Building Programme

Mr. Swingler: asked the Minister of Education what was the total value of the school-building projects submitted by local education authorities for 1963–64; how many projects were involved; what total value and how many projects he has approved; and if he will give the detailed figures relating to Staffordshire and Newcastle-under-Lyme, respectively.

Sir D. Eccles: Over England and Wales as a whole about 1,200 projects estimated to cost about £127 million were proposed; actual starts will amount to about 550 projects costing £55 million.
The Staffordshire local education authority submitted for the 1963–64 school building programme thirty-three projects estimated to cost £3,400,000, including four estimated at £450,000 in Newcastle-under-Lyme. Of these, nineteen projects estimated at £1,300,000, including two estimated at £240,000 in Newcastle-under-Lyme, were accepted for the programme.

Mr. Swingler: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware of the shocked reaction in the country to the drastic cuts he constantly makes in local authorities' education proposals? He is constantly talking about the need for more invest-

ment but is bringing his axe down on the building programme, which is vital to the future expansion of our education system. Will he not reconsider the proposals which the local authorities have put forward because they are really necessary for the future development of education?

Sir D. Eccles: This is not a new situation. Every year the local authorities put forward proposals—quite rightly, from their point of view—of what they think they need of approximately two and a half times the investment that is available for school building. This is a good thing because it enables us to sort out the priorities with them from one year to the next. The hon. Gentleman's county and the town which he represents have got more than the national average.

Mr. Swingler: How can the Minister know better than those who are serving on the local education authorities what is necessary to provide a better educational service by way of new school building?

Sir D. Eccles: This is not a question of knowing which schools are needed in general but of planning, which I thought the hon. Gentleman supported, namely, bringing the school building programme for any one year within the financial ceiling of the pubic sector of investment.

Mr. Willey: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that he is speaking with two voices; he is setting up a survey of old buildings and, at the same time, is making nonsense of that survey if he discourages local authorities when they put forward their proposals based on present knowledge?

Sir D. Eccles: Not at all. The survey is for a different purpose which, I thought, we might discuss in the debate after Questions.

Dr. King: asked the Minister of Education what was the total amount of new school building programmes submitted by local education authorities for 1962–63: and how much of this he has decided to permit.

Sir D. Eccles: I would refer the hon. Member to the Answer I gave him on 13th July, 1961.

Dr. King: Is the Minister aware that that Answer showed that there were cuts in that year of a similar magnitude to the cuts in the current programme? Does he realise that the cuts he made outraged educational opinion throughout the country and that even the loyal Daily Telegraph was worried about them? Will the right hon. Gentleman stand up to the Treasury and fight for education? If he does he will have the support of most hon. Members and the whole of the country.

Sir D. Eccles: The hon. Gentleman must realise that it is impossible to plan educational investment unless local authorities ask for more projects than we have money for, which they would do in any case. This is the only sensible way, year by year, to establish the most urgent priorities.

Mr. S. Silverman: Would not the right hon. Gentleman agree that it would be prudent for the local education authorities to multiply their requests by three in order that the Minister could then divide them by three, so that they would get exactly what they want and he, too, would be satisfied?

Sir D. Eccles: It is remarkable how some local authorities, even within a single county, are realistic while others are totally unrealistic. That is why these global figures do not mean very much.

Mr. Willey: asked the Minister of Education whether he will make a further statement on the school building programme for 1963–64; and whether he will review this programme in view of the representations he has received from local education authorities.

Sir D. Eccles: Since my statement of 27th February on the 1963–64 building programme I have informed the local education authorities of their respective allocations. I cannot increase the programme at present but, as I said in my previous statement, this is a possibility if the longer term economic prospects improve and further investment in the public sector can be authorised.

Mr. Willey: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that this is not a question of unrealistic authorities and that over

all he has more than halved the estimates put in by the local education authorities and that that, on top of the cuts in minor works, is thoroughly discouraging to the education authorities? Is he aware that they think that they can do this work and that it is only the right hon. Gentleman who is preventing them?

Sir D. Eccles: The hon. Gentleman is quite wrong. A large proportion of education authorities know quite well that they could not carry out a much bigger programme than that which they are given. I repeat that I have an assurance that if the long-term economic conditions improve and it is possible to add to public investment without overloading the building industry, then education has a very high priority.

Mr. Willey: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that what we want is action now and that it is no good to have programmes approved now unless we can have them finalised now? Is he not aware that it is nonsense to say that London County Council could not carry out the work which it wants to do? He knows quite well that it could if it was allowed to do so.

Sir D. Eccles: The population of London is dwindling and London needs no new schools for additional child population, so that all its allocation is for replacing existing schools. Replacement is not so urgent as schools which are required in areas where children would not otherwise be in school.

Mr. Willey: On a point of order. In view of the unsatisfactory nature of the right hon. Gentleman's reply, I beg to give notice that I will raise the matter on the Adjournment at the earliest opportunity.

Oral Answers to Questions — AGRICULTURE, FISHERIES AND FOOD

Spring Seed Dressings

Mr. Farr: asked the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food whether he is satisfied that the steps he has taken to prohibit the use of certain types of spring seed dressings have proved effective; and if he will make a statement.

The Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food (Mr. Christopher Soames): Yes, Sir. I am glad to say that, following the agreement not to use certain cereal seed dressings on spring sown cereals, there has been a marked reduction this spring in the deaths of wild birds. A number of suspected incidents have been reported to my Department's Infestation Control Laboratory. Analysis of these has shown that some birds probably died from eating dressed grain, but in about half the bodies so far examined no trace of chemical seed dressing could be found. Investigations are continuing and I intend to publish a report on these as soon as possible. The whole position will then be reviewed with the interests concerned.

Mr. Farr: Is my right hon. Friend aware of the warning which health officials had to give to members of the public in Norfolk last week, advising them not to touch the carcasses of many hundreds of dead birds which had been found? In view of that, does he think that a voluntary ban will be sufficient for future occasions?

Mr. Soames: The situation has been infinitely better this year. Only 57 instances were reported this year compared with about 300, involving many thousands of birds, last year. We have had a much more satisfactory coverage this year and I am certain that there has been a great improvement. But I ask my hon. Friend to await the report after we have had full experience of the spring.

Oral Answers to Questions — PRIME MINISTER AND PRESIDENT KENNEDY (DISCUSSIONS)

Mr. Emrys Hughes: asked the Prime Minister if, in his forthcoming discussions with President Kennedy, he will suggest ending the agreement for Polaris bases in Great Britain as a step towards easing international tension.

The Prime Minister (Mr. Harold Macmillan): No, Sir.

Mr. Hughes: Will the Prime Minister consider putting before President Kennedy the point of view that, as a result of the Polaris base, the west of Scotland has now become one of the

most dangerous places in the world? [Laughter.] Hon. Members may laugh, but it is true. Is he aware that the Polaris base has increased tension in the world and has stepped up the arms race, and that the 50 megaton bomb has made the Polaris approach obsolete? Does he not think that he would be doing a good service this Easter if he put these facts soberly and realistically before President Kennedy?

The Prime Minister: I am afraid that I could not accept all the conclusions which the hon. Member has reached. The Holy Loch arrangement strengthens Western defence and I think that it is generally recognised as so doing.

Oral Answers to Questions — SUMMIT CONFERENCE

Mr. A. Henderson: asked the Prime Minister whether he will now make a statement on the holding of a summit conference.

Mr. Prentice: asked the Prime Minister whether he is now in a position to announce plans for a summit conference.

The Prime Minister: I have nothing to add to what I told the House on 10th April.

Mr. Henderson: Is the Prime Minister aware that there is a widespread belief that the achievement of East-West agreement would be greatly facilitated by an early meeting between the Western leaders and Mr. Khrushchev? Will he not give the House an assurance that he will propose to President Kennedy that such a meeting should take place at an early date?

The Prime Minister: All these will be matters for discussion, of course, but it would be unwise to make any statement at this moment.

Mr. Prentice: If there is no attempt to rescue the Geneva deadlock by an early summit meeting, are we not faced with a situation in which we shall have tests on Christmas Island followed by a comparable series of Soviet tests, a situation in which no progress is likely to be made for some months either on the test ban treaty or on wider disarmament? Would it not be more realistic and imaginative to postpone the


Christmas Island tests and try to make progress with a summit meeting?

The Prime Minister: There are later Questions on that which I will try to answer.

Mr. Gaitskell: Would not the Prime Minister agree that there is something in the argument that it will be difficult to reach agreement with the Russians except at the highest level, and that Mr. Khrushchev is not very willing that concessions should be made to the Western point of view except in an agreement which he himself has negotiated? Will the Prime Minister bear in mind that while it is obviously necessary carefully to consider the timing of any summit conference and the preparations for it, it may well be that this problem cannot be solved except at the top?

The Prime Minister: Yes, Sir, I accept that that may be so, but that is why it would be wiser for me to discuss all this with President Kennedy and the other Heads of States or Governments with whom we are allied rather than make a statement today.

Mr. Grimond: Even if the present series of tests continues, can the Prime Minister assure us that in his conversations with President Kennedy he will urge him to draw up some plan by which there can be an agreement on a lest ban before a still further series of tests by both sides follow the present series?

The Prime Minister: We have done everything we possibly could. We worked as hard as we could. We made proposal after proposal. We are discouraged but not defeated.

Oral Answers to Questions — LORD PRIVY SEAL (SPEECH)

Mr. H. Wilson: asked the Prime Minister whether the speech of the Lord Privy Seal to the Ministerial Meeting of Western European Union on 10th April represents the policy of Her Majesty's Government.

The Prime Minister: Yes, Sir.

Mr. Wilson: Does the right hon Gentleman recall that, when on 31st July he announced the decision to seek entry to the Community, he said that this was a purely economic and trading

negotiation and not a political or foreign policy negotiation? As the Lord Privy Seal has now said that in the Government's view it must be political as well as economic and that as members we would want to strengthen its political development, what is the Prime Minister doing to reconcile this quite clear contradiction between his own statement and that of the Lord Privy Seal? When will we get a full statement from the right hon. Gentleman about what the Government are after in the negotiations?

The Prime Minister: What I said is perfectly true. The Treaty of Rome deals with economic matters. At the same time, it is perfectly clear that there are political implications and that if present or future members of the Community are to work together we recognise and are ready to play our part in the political aspects as well as the economic, but they are not implicit in the Treaty of Rome itself.

Mr. Wilson: Obviously they are not implicit in the Treaty of Rome, but did not the right hon. Gentleman say on that occasion that the right place for political co-operation and unity in Europe was through W.E.U. and N.A.T.O.? Why is he now saying that the Lord Privy Seal is right to say that we must develop the political tie-up in the Community?

The Prime Minister: The right hon. Gentleman will have observed that it was to W.E.U. that the Lord Privy Seal made this speech. It is perfectly simple. The Treaty of Rome deals with economic and social questions, but at the same time there is a movement for political co-operation among the members. Although we are not members of this body at present, it is interesting to us to know what that development would be. We would be ready to associate ourselves with it if the terms were those which were acceptable to us.

Sir H. Legge-Bourke: Will the Prime Minister please clarify this one point? The Fouchet Committee, which I think we have now called the Cattani Committee, has been sitting for a long time while these negotiations have been going on on the economic front. Will


my right hon. Friend say whether it is now the view of the Government that we ought to be allowed to join in the discussions, if not vote, in the Cattani Committee, because it surely means that if we are to make any sense on this political front we must know what the European countries themselves are saying?

The Prime Minister: We have, I think, to be careful of our status and to operate in a correct way. What we have not asked is to be admitted to this Commission, but we have indicated that we would be prepared to participate if we were invited to do so.

Mr. Gaitskell: Is the Prime Minister aware that his attempt to reconcile what he said on 31st July with what the Lord Privy Seal said recently is singularly unconvincing? Does not he recall that he was speaking of the negotiations, that is to say, the series of negotiations which are now taking place, and that he referred to them as being purely economic and trade, and not political and foreign policy? How, in these circumstances, can he reconcile that with the statement of the Lord Privy Seal which clearly concerned political integration?

The Prime Minister: I was referring to the Brussels negotiations which are continuing, and which are confined entirely to economic questions and questions arising out of the Treaty of Rome. Parallel with that, this Fouchet Committee has come into being. We are quite prepared to discuss the political operation of these powers together. We do not claim to be admitted to the Commission, but we are ready to participate if we are invited.

Mr. Gaitskell: Is the Prime Minister aware that this introduces a completely new concept? Up to now, in the light of the statement made to the House of Commons last July, we had assumed that Her Majesty's Government would not be a party to political negotiations at this stage. While it may be true to say that the meeting was a W.E.U. meeting, it is clear that the Lord Privy Seal's statement was made to members of the Common Market. Can we have a clear statement, as my right hon.

Friend asked, as to what is Her Majesty's Government's attitude to further political integration in Europe?

The Prime Minister: "Integration" is rather a doubtful word. We are ready to take part in political discussions which would add to the co-operation of the members in the Common Market, but this is a separate thing altogether from the negotiations going on in Brussels with regard to the economic and social questions of the Treaty of Rome. They are parallel to some extent but they are separate. One obviously will act on the other, and when the whole matter comes to be decided and put before the House, it will be for the House to decide whether the proposals put forward by the Government are acceptable or not.

Mr. Grimond: Are we not suffering again from the failure of the Government to make up their mind whether they want to negotiate or not? May I ask the Prime Minister whether we have any guarantee that further political decisions about the future of Europe will not be taken until we are in fact represented at the negotiations?

The Prime Minister: The guarantee we give is that we will put forward in this House the proposals we make when these discussions come to an end, and it will be for the House to decide.

Mr. Wilson: Is the Prime Minister aware that his answers this morning have been profoundly unsatisfactory, and that there is a grave danger that we shall go into Europe with Europe thinking that we are committed to their idea of the political objective, and then in three or four years' time we shall be accused of bad faith when we make it clear that we cannot accept supra-national foreign policies? In those circumstances, as we are on the eve of the Easter Recess, will the right hon. Gentleman spend a little time during the Recess thinking this out and will he make a fresh statement when we come back?

The Prime Minister: The right hon. Gentleman's error is in thinking that there is an agreed European view on this matter. There are different views, but if we are invited to take part we will be ready to express our view.

Oral Answers to Questions — NUCLEAR TESTS (DETECTION AND VERIFICATION)

Mrs. Butler: asked the Prime Minister whether, in view of the new claim by official Soviet seismologists, made public on 11th April, that they have detected all nuclear explosions carried out abroad, on or under the earth, he will discuss immediately with President Kennedy the possibility of dropping the Western demand for inspection in concluding a nuclear test ban.

The Prime Minister: No, Sir. I have seen claims made by the Russians about the successes of their seismologists, but the opinion of our own experts is that it is not possible to detect and identify all underground nuclear tests by instruments alone. We have suggested to the Russians that their scientists should meet ours and exchange information, but the Russians have not responded.

Mrs. Butler: As there is agreement generally among seismologists on this, are not we now guilty of exposing the people of the world to death and disease from a renewal of tests because we are making an increasingly dubious technical point the justification for not concluding a treaty? Will the Prime Minister convey to President Kennedy the urgent need for an end to this power politics approach and the need for a break-through on the lines that the neutral nations have suggested to get an agreement with Russia?

The Prime Minister: I think that the hon. Lady is confusing two things. There is first the question of identification of an explosion, to discover whether it is likely to have been caused by natural or artificial causes. That can be done either—under the original treaty as the Russians accepted it—by instruments placed inside Soviet territory and correspondingly inside our territory, or, with a lesser degree of efficiency, by instruments outside. But wherever this occurs, as instruments can tell us only that there is something which may be one or the other, it is necessary to have verification on the spot of any doubtful incident, or one complained of.

Mr. H. Wilson: Would not it be a good idea, since Russia claims to have

monitored all the American underground tests and not just the twenty-three publicly announced, for the Government to go one step further and ask the Russians to give a list of the times and dates of all the tests that they claim to have monitored, and set that list against what is known to the Americans? We can then see whether it is true, as the Russians claim, that it is possible to monitor all these tests. Secondly, will the Prime Minister endorse with his authority the statement that we have had from the Lord Privy Seal that the Government intend to make a serious examination of the proposals from the eight non-aligned countries, and, if we can be satisfied that this will result in adequate verification and check, that the Government will take that as a final proposal?

The Prime Minister: With regard to the second part, I will not anticipate the reply that I will make to Questions on the Order Paper which, with your permission, Mr. Speaker, I will answer after Questions. With regard to the first part, it was not very difficult to identify the tests, if they were the Nevada tests, because they were near the site which was known to have been used in the previous tests. There is very little seismic activity in the area and they were relatively big. It comes down to the point that, however one identifies, and of course there are hundreds of these incidents, one has to try to find out whether, because of the reactions, it is one that is likely to have been artificially created or naturally created. But when that is done, there must be verification on the spot to discover which it is.

Mr. A. Henderson: asked the Prime Minister whether he will propose to President Kennedy that verification of underground explosions under a test ban treaty should be carried out by an international body of scientists nominated by the Secretary-General of the United Nations.

The Prime Minister: The right hon. and learned Member's suggestion is very similar to the proposals put forward in Geneva by the eight non-aligned countries which are being closely considered. I am answering other Questions about these proposals later.

Oral Answers to Questions — FINANCE BILL (PROCEDURE)

Mr. D. Foot: asked the Prime Minister whether Her Majesty's Government will make proposals to the House to give effect this year to the suggestion made by the Select Committee on Procedure in 1959 that the whole or part of the Finance Bill should be committed to a Standing Committee.

The Prime Minister: No, Sir. I do not think the House could reach agreement on any change in procedure in time to bring it into effect this year.

Mr. Foot: Does not the right hon. Gentleman recollect that last year this House spent no fewer than twelve days on the Committee and Report stages of the Finance Bill considering details of financial legislation which were of great technicality and extreme dullness? Would not the House be better employed, at any rate on some of these days, in discussing matters of great public interest for which at present no time can be found?

The Prime Minister: It would be a very big change for the Finance Bill not to be taken on the Floor of the House. This is a matter which can be done only with agreement, and I do not think that that exists. However, if it were raised by right hon. or hon. Members it might perhaps be referred to the Committee on Procedure, but I do not think that it can be dismissed as a small change in our affairs.

NUCLEAR TESTS

The following Questions stood upon the Order Paper:

Q9. Mr. DRIBERG: To ask the Prime Minister if, in view of the proposal for the international observation of nuclear tests tabled by eight neutral nations at Geneva on 16th April, he will now consult the President of the United States with a view to the cancellation of the Christmas Island tests or their postponement while the neutral nations' proposal is considered.

Q12. Mr. FRANK ALLAUN: To ask the Prime Minister if, in his talks next week, he will ask President Kennedy to accept the new proposal of the neutral nations

for ending the East-West nuclear test ban deadlock, and meanwhile postpone the scheduled series of test explosions at Christmas Island.

Q13. Mr. RANKIN: To ask the Prime Minister whether he will propose to President Kennedy that the Christmas Island tests be cancelled or postponed while the proposal for international observation of nuclear tests, made by eight neutral nations at Geneva on 16th April, is considered.

Q15. Mr. ZILLIACUS: To ask the Prime Minister whether, in view of the proposal made by eight neutral nations on 16th April at Geneva for the international observation of nuclear tests, he will now propose to President Kennedy that no tests be conducted until this proposal has been discussed.

The Prime Minister (Mr. Harold Macmillan): With permission, I will answer Questions Nos. Q9, Q12, 013 and Q15 together.
These proposals were put forward on 16th April. Both the Minister of State and Mr. Dean, the United States representative, undertook to study them immediately. On 17th April the British and American representatives asked for clarification of a number of points and the neutrals are to make a reply to these questions today. The vital point for us is the acceptance of the principle of effective international verification. This was made quite clear in the President's and my own joint statement on 10th April and in my letter to Mr. Khrushchev.
Unhappily, Mr. Khrushchev's reply confirmed that Mr. Gromyko and Mr. Zorin had correctly represented the views of the Soviet Government. The position is now that if the neutral proposals provide for effective measures of international verification, and if the Russians, even at this late stage, agree to this, negotiation will become possible. If not, no negotiations can be fruitful, and I cannot ask President Kennedy to postpone the tests.

Mr. Driberg: All of us will welcome the slight gleam of hope contained in the Prime Minister's last words, but can he say whether these tests are likely to take place before we again have an opportunity of questioning him, if the


neutrals' reply to the questions is not considered satisfactory? Further, would not this be a very good opportunity—this setting up of a body of international scientists—at least to test the effectiveness of international verification, since in some of his earlier answers—with great respect—the Prime Minister seemed to exaggerate the difficulty of this?

The Prime Minister: Again, there are two points to be considered. The verification takes place after the instruments, wherever placed, reveal an incident.

Mr. Driberg: I am sorry—I meant identification, and not verification.

The Prime Minister: The principle of international verification comes into play after the instruments, wherever placed, have shown that an explosion has occurred which might be due to other than natural causes. That is the vital point. I have read very carefully in an article in The Times the proposals put forward by the neutrals. I believe that they were very fairly summed up in that article. As I understand it, the proposals would not make verification compulsory; it would be only permissive. If it is to be only permissive, we are really back where we stood before.
The whole question is: is it to be compulsory or permissive? If that point were granted by the Russians—and we have made that point over and over again—the whole situation would be changed. It is that point which, once more, we have thought it our duty to put forward. Failing that, I do not think that a fruitful negotiation can now be embarked upon.

Mr. Frank Allaun: Whatever may be the risk of Russia or America conducting small underground tests without detection, is not that risk less than that involved in the alternative, which is to have both sides resuming tests, and the whole nuclear arms race getting out of control? Since the Big Two seem incapable of getting out of their clinch and accepting each other's proposals, why not grasp the neutrals' proposal, since it may be our last chance?

The Prime Minister: I should like to clear up one point. The question of small or large tests is not now at issue.

We have accepted that that is not the point. The point is whether large or small tests should be made. This is a tragic situation. If this single point were granted we could make progress, but without it we are relying, in fact, almost on what we had for three years—a general understanding not to make tests. Our experience of that does not lead me to feel that it would be possible for me to ask President Kennedy to go back to that position.
There are terrible risks in both courses. Nobody can say that we have not striven as hard as we could to try to get a reasonable solution of this problem. I do not abandon hope that even if we fail this time we may be able to come back to it, even as part of some larger settlement. But I do not think that after all the efforts that we have made and all the points that we have tried to grant I could effectively or honourably ask that the tests should be abandoned, merely on what might be called a general understanding.

Mr. Rankin: I respect all that the Prime Minister has said, but is it not a fact that the United States Secretary of Defence has declared that America has an enormous strategic superiority over Russia at present? In view of that fact, would we lose anything if we were to urge President Kennedy at least to consider postponing the tests while we contemplate this new proposal from the eight neutral nations?

The Prime Minister: It is perfectly true that, as has been mentioned before, the United States Secretary for Defence has stated that at present America has a very strong and even overwhelming position. The question is: is that position likely to be endangered by new discoveries—by a break-through or something which may come out of these tests? The Russians have now carried out two series of tests ahead of America. We discussed this in great detail in Bermuda. Nobody will be keener than I or President Kennedy to reach the conclusion which the hon. Member proposes, but we cannot do so, because our advisers tell us that there are risks which we ought not to take.

Mr. Brockway: Resign.

Mr. Zilliacus: Is it not a fact that there were British and American tests


after the Russians had unilaterally suspended tests, and that we are still ahead of them in the number of tests carried out? Is it not further a fact that existing national detection systems can with certainty indentify the nature of all explosions in the atmosphere, and of all but quite minor underground explosions?
In those circumstances, is not the Prime Minister straining at gnats over controls, in rejecting the hypothetical risk that under the neutrals' plan a test ban treaty might be denounced at some future date because of disagreement about the verifying of minor tests, and swallowing the elephant of the evils and dangers of aggravating the arms race and wrecking the world's hopes of peace?

The Prime Minister: The hon. Member's historical account of this affair is rather biassed. I honestly think that the Western Powers have made great efforts to try to solve this question. We have worked at it very hard. We have postponed our tests over the whole period of three years. During that period the Russians prepared for further tests, which they suddenly brought about. Even then we did not make these preparations. After the first three tests the President and I proposed the very solution which the hon. Member suggests, to ban atmospheric tests. That suggestion was rejected with contumely by the Russians.

Mr. A. Henderson: Does not the Prime Minister agree that the problem of verification is entirely one for the scientific mind? In view of the reiterated fears expressed by the Soviet Government on the question of espionage, will not he consider, in connection with the proposal put forward by the eight neutral countries, the possibility that the whole question of verification should be treated as a scientific problem and put under the aegis of the United Nations?

The Prime Minister: The variation in scientific views, if any, concerns the range at which instruments can say that an incident has happened which may not be due to natural causes. The question of verification is an entirely different one. When an incident is reported the principle of verification is that a team can

go to the place quickly, before the traces can be removed, and see whether there has been an artificial explosion. That is the point, and it is an ordinary practical point. I said before, and I repeat, that I could understand the possibility of fears of espionage—I think that they are exaggerated, but perhaps they are endemic in the Russian mind—if these were incidents in factories, or in great centres of population, but they are in very remote places, where, perhaps, we would agree to put forward the suggestion that a team of neutrals would go for a week or ten days, or whatever was the necessary time, and then come back, and in those circumstances the argument about espionage is quite untenable.

Mr. M. Foot: Has the Prime Minister or the Government considered the position, of which there may be some indications, that the Soviet military authorities have been bringing pressure to bear on the Soviet Government to enable tests to take place precisely because the Soviet military authorities may wish to make good their present nuclear inferiority, and that, if this is the case, the fact of the Americans going ahead with the tests is merely playing into their hands?
Tough action on one side is merely encouraging tough action on the other side. Therefore, how can the right hon. Gentleman think that people will accept his view that we have done everything to try to stop this terrible horror of 30 or 40 tests which may take place in the next few days, started this time by the Americans, when he will not even ask President Kennedy to postpone the tests for even a few days?

The Prime Minister: The hon. Gentleman is entitled to his view, but I think that the broad opinion in the country and in the House is that the President and I have tried to do the best we could in the situation short of—and this is the real point—abandoning what we believe to be our duty to protect the power and strength of the West.

Mr. Gaitskell: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that most of us believe that we shall not stop the nuclear arms race either in the form of tests or other ways without a multilateral disarmament agreement, and that we


shall not get such an agreement without international inspection of some form or other? Having said that, can the Prime Minister tell us whether the Russians have yet rejected the neutrals' proposals and the stage which the negotiations have reached?
While accepting the point which the right hon. Gentleman made that it is essential that there should be the right of access in a limited form, perhaps by independent neutral bodies, to inspect if an explosion has occurred, and if they do not know what it is, can the Prime Minister say definitely that the Russians have as yet turned that down?

The Prime Minister: As the right hon. Gentleman knows, the neutral proposals were, in a sense, permissive and not compulsory, that is to say, the Russians have a right to refuse the team arriving. That, of course, grants them their whole case. We have put points about that and they are being discussed. Mr. Zorin made no comments, I think. We put those points the day before yesterday and asked the neutrals to explain this particular point.
As I said, and I repeat exactly, the neutrals are to make a reply to these questions today. The vital point is the acceptance of the principle of international verification, to which the right hon. Gentleman referred, so far rejected all through the negotiations—rejected when we made our joint statement, rejected in Mr. Khrushchev's reply to my quite short and simple letter on this point. If they were at the last stage suddenly to change, then, of course, negotiation would become possible.

GUY BURGESS AND DONALD MACLEAN (WARRANTS)

Mr. G. Brown (by Private Notice): asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether he will make a statement about the announcement by Scotland Yard that warrants have been applied for and issued for the arrest of Guy Burgess and Donald Maclean.

The Attorney-General (Sir Reginald Manningham-Buller): I have been asked to reply, as my right hon. Friend has no responsibility for the announcement.
An application for warrants for the arrest of these two men was made by police officers acting on advice given, with my approval, by the Director of Public Prosecutions. It is not in the public interest to disclose the information which led to the application being made.
In the particular circumstances of this case I thought it desirable that a statement should be issued explaining why the application was made at this juncture and, in accordance with the normal practice, the announcement was made by the Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police.

Mr. Brown: Is the right hon. and learned Gentleman aware that the general behaviour yesterday seems to be well in accord with what has happened throughout this remarkable affair over the last ten or eleven years? The right hon. and learned Gentleman said that he took responsibility for issuing the statement. May I ask what was the purpose of the statement? Is it now normal practice, When we are hoping to arrest people against whom we have charges, to take the utmost public steps to let them know and to arrange that the wildest messages shall reach them before they can possibly, by accident, land in their plane, and then to issue a further statement, as the right hon. and learned Gentleman did yesterday, qualifying the original one by briefing the men fully on the limits under which the warrants would operate?
What was the purpose of this operation? Did the right hon. and learned Gentleman want them to be made aware of the issue of the warrants in order to arrest them, or was the whole operation undertaken in order to warn them off so that we should not have to arrest them?

The Attorney-General: Experience has shown that it is almost normal for information to leak out about the issue of warrants. That has been a sad experience in the past. I thought that it would be better, as the information was almost certain to leak out, to make this announcement so as to reduce the area of speculation if possible.
The right hon. Gentleman has asked whether this step was taken to reduce the risk of these men coming here. I


appreciate quite well that if the issuing of warrants for the arrest of persons outside the jurisdiction becomes known in one way or another it may operate to deter them from coming. On the other hand, I say that having issued the warrants the chances of their being apprehended if they come here in transit are materially increased.

Mr. Brown: Is it an accurate summing up of that involved statement to say that the Attorney-General, being unable to control leaks from his Department or from the Home Office, decided to exaggerate them and to announce them himself? Would it not be more in keeping with the normal practice in this country if the right hon. and learned Gentleman took steps to stop up leaks in his Department? This muddle is deliberately brought about by the right hon. and learned Gentleman, for which he accepts responsibility.

The Attorney-General: There has been no muddle and no leaks so far as I am aware from either the Home Office or from my Department in relation to the issue of warrants or any other matters. That allegation is quite unfounded.

Mr. Manuel: The hon. and learned Gentleman said it.

The Attorney-General: I did not say from the Home Office and I did not say from my Department, but I did say, and I repeat it, that experience has shown that the Press in some way does get information of these matters.

Mr. Grimond: Is it the principle that if the Government suspect that the Press may get information about anything, they are going to forestall it? Can the right hon. and learned Gentleman throw any light upon where these gentlemen now are? Are they on their way to this country, or did they stay in Russia?

The Attorney-General: I said that it was not in the public interest to disclose the information on which the application was made.

Mr. Donnelly: Will the Attorney-General give us an assurance that if these men are arrested he himself will not appear for their defence?

Mr. S. Silverman: Is it not perfectly clear that if the Government or Scotland

Yard desired to prevent it being publicly known that these warrants had been asked for and granted, it was well within their resources to have secured that object, and that, therefore, everyone will infer that the publicity given to the application for these warrants was welcome to the Government? Does it not therefore follow that all over the world it will now be inferred that the Government are more afraid of an investigation into these matters under Section 1 of the Official Secrets Act than the alleged criminals can possibly be?

The Attorney-General: The answer to that is, "No, Sir". The object of issuing warrants is to increase the chances of securing their arrest should they come to an airport in this country or to where we have jurisdiction in transit, or should they land in transit. If they are arrested, they certainly will be prosecuted.

Mr. Gaitskell: May I ask two questions? Can the Attorney-General say whether the fact that Mr. Burgess and Mr. Maclean did not arrive is because the information he received, and upon which he approved an application for the warrant, was wrong; or whether he frightened them off by what he did, by announcing that the application had been made?
Secondly, in connection with the right hon. and learned Gentleman's astonishing assertion that an application for the issue of a warrant always leaked, is not this a very serious matter? Does not it really undermine the effectiveness of the police in dealing with criminals? Can he say how these leaks occur and what he is doing to stop them?

The Attorney-General: A great many people have to be informed at all the ports and airports when a warrant is issued if any effective action is to be taken. All I was saying was that experience in the past has shown that these leaks do occur and that it is very difficult to detect who is responsible. If we could find who was responsible, action would immediately be taken. But that being so, it was thought best to take this particular step in these particular circumstances.
On the question whether this deterred them from coming here, I think I can say that this application was not based


on any information or belief that they were in the course of flight at this moment, or a day or two ago, towards this country.

COMMONWEALTH PRIME MINISTERS' MEETING

The Prime Minister (Mr. Harold Macmillan): With permission, Mr. Speaker, I will now make a statement.
As the House knows, I have been in communication with Commonwealth Prime Ministers over the last few weeks in order to fix the date of the next Commonwealth Prime Ministers' meeting. The main purpose of this meeting will be to discuss the Common Market, although we shall, of course, make our normal review of world affairs. We naturally wish to hold this meeting as soon as possible and while negotiations are still going on. Equally, it is clear that this meeting will only have its maximum utility if it takes place after the broad pattern of the special arrangements likely to be acceptable has emerged.
In the light of these circumstances, and bearing in mind the other preoccupations of the Commonwealth Prime Ministers, I am happy to inform the House that there is now general agreement that the meeting should open in London on 10th September.
One or two of my Commonwealth colleagues may be prevented by commitments in their own countries from attending in person. If so, they have undertaken to send a senior Minister to represent them.

Mr. Gaitskell: While welcoming the news that there is to be a Commonwealth Prime Ministers' conference, particularly to discuss the Common Market, on 10th September, may I ask the Prime Minister to clear up what he means by the phrase "likely to be acceptable"? Does he mean likely to be acceptable to the E.E.C., while the attitude of Her Majesty's Government is not yet firm and settled, or does he mean likely to be acceptable to Her Majesty's Government? In the latter case, how does he reconcile this with a promise he gave that the Government would not make up their mind until after the discussion

with the Commonwealth Prime Ministers?

The Prime Minister: I meant the broad pattern of the protocol that we would have a chance of negotiating; likely to be acceptable, therefore, to those with whom we are negotiating. We want to have the discussion with the Prime Ministers before concluding negotiations, and when we see what kind of agreement we are likely to get.

Mr. Gaitskell: Can the Prime Minister be a little more specific? I will put it like this. Can he give an assurance that the Government will not make up their mind before the Prime Ministers' conference?

The Prime Minister: Of course the Government will continue to negotiate. There will then be a general picture-though not, naturally, precise in every detail—of what is the kind of agreement that might be reached. It will then be our duty to discuss that with the Commonwealth Prime Ministers. We are, of course, discussing it all the time through the officials, and at other meetings. But that will be the moment. It will then be our duty to consider the situation and to decide what proposals, if any, we are to put before the House.

Mr. Gaitskell: May I ask one further question? What steps does the Prime Minister propose to take so that the British people may also be informed about the broad pattern likely to be acceptable?

The Prime Minister: I think that the proper and the more courteous thing would be first to finish these negotiations. Owing to the time of year it is not possible to go straight on. I think that discussions in August would be impracticable. September is difficult for some of the Commonwealth Prime Ministers, but, still, they all think that they will be able to fit it in. Then the whole picture will be deployed to the people and to Parliament at an appropriate time.

Mr. Walker: As a prelude to the Prime Ministers' conference and to that part of the negotiations with what some people call the Fouchet Committee and others call the Cattani Committee, could my right hon. Friend call a conference of Commonwealth trade and finance


Ministers to discuss possible measures for increasing Commonwealth trade so that any measures so agreed on could be taken into consideration both in the negotiations and the Prime Ministers' conference?

The Prime Minister: I do not know that it would be the best way to have a special conference for that. It is going on all the time. We are having visits from these Ministers and our Ministers visit them, and we have discussions with the officials. There will be the Commonwealth Prime Ministers, perhaps with their finance or trade Ministers, and we could have discussions at the same time on that. I can assure the House that all the time we are in the closest touch by every possible means of communication. But the date fixed is the one which I think the most practical, and which certainly has been accepted by all my colleagues in the Commonwealth.

Mr. Grimond: Since this meeting of Commonwealth Prime Ministers is not to take place until September, will the Prime Minister tell us whether he is confident that no further steps dealing with the political unification of Europe will take place within Europe by that date? Since the right hon. Gentleman said earlier that the Government have certain proposals in this matter, and since the statement of the Lord Privy Seal makes clear that they now accept that the political unification of Europe is a legitimate end of the present negotiations, can the Prime Minister tell us when the people of this country will be informed of the proposals of the Government about the political side of this whole matter?

The Prime Minister: As I said, that is a parallel but a separate issue. I cannot tell what the Six are prepared to do. What we have made clear to them is that while we cannot expect to be asked—not being at the moment a member of the club, if we can call it that—to join in discussions on the political side, since they are hoping, and we are hoping, that we may become a member of this club, if suitable arrangements can be made, we are ready, if invited, to take part in political discussions parallel with the other matter.

Sir H. Legge-Bourke: When we debated this matter on 2nd August last year, my right hon. Friend said:
We make no binding decisions at the Commonwealth Prime Ministers' meetings. We follow no agreed foreign policy. We have no agreed defence policy."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 2nd August, 1961; Vol. 645, c. 1484.]
Does that mean that if the Commonwealth Prime Ministers, or the majority of them, were to be against Britain joining the Common Market, nevertheless Britain would go it alone?

The Prime Minister: No, Sir. What I said in those words was the mere fact. Some members of the Commonwealth have a stake in this great defence question and are members of various organisations like N.A.T.O. Others are neutral. Some take part, others are unaligned. That is a fact. Our duty is to continue negotiations to try to put the whole picture before the Commonwealth Prime Ministers and consider what they say, and, in the light of these discussions, to make proposals or not; and to make a decision which we shall announce and ask the House to support.

Mr. Bottomley: May I express a personal hope that the Common Market talks will succeed? Before the proposed Commonwealth Prime Ministers' conference, could not the Prime Minister say that if this country had to choose between the Commonwealth and the Common Market countries, the Commonwealth would come first?

The Prime Minister: It has always been our position that if that absolute division of interest took place we would have to see what we have to decide, and what the Commonwealth Prime Ministers will discuss with us, and are now discussing with us, is the broad pattern and whether, in the broad interests of the Commonwealth and of Europe and of the world, it would be good or bad for us to go in. That is the problem and it cannot be decided until more specific negotiations have taken place about the various conditions. The same applies to British agriculture and the same applies to the E.F.T.A. countries.

Mr. H. Wilson: Further to the question by my right hon. Friend the Leader of the Opposition about informing the British public, including Members of Parliament, is the Prime Minister aware


that on three occasions now, the last being last week, important confidential statements have appeared in the columns of The Times while still being refused to hon. Members of the House? In those circumstances, will he consider emulating the bold and forthcoming attitude of the Attorney-General and make arrangements that a White Paper, or some other public statement, shall be issued by the Government at the same time that it goes to The Times?

The Prime Minister: The question of The Times was dealt with by the Lord Privy Seal yesterday. If the hon. Member is meaning to be serious and not merely in a joking mood, the question I would put to him is this. We are in the middle of negotiations; at what point if he were negotiating would he issue a White Paper saying what he hoped to get, what he would propose to accept, the maximum and the minimum of his demands? Would he put all his cards on the table in the negotiation while it was going on? That seems to be absolutely contrary to normal practice of negotiations.

Mr. Speaker: Mr. Speaker rose—

Mr. Wilson: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. Since the Prime Minister has addressed a question to me may I be allowed to answer it?

Mr. Speaker: It appeared to be of so rhetorical a character that I thought we ought to get on now to a Question before the House.

Adjournment

Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—[Mr. Peel.]

SCOTLAND (FIFTH UNIVERSITY)

12.32 p.m.

Mr. John Rankin: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. In view of the enormous amount of our time which has already been consumed, may we hope that at the appointed hour for the conclusion of this debate a little toleration may be granted?

Mr. Speaker: These are not appointed hours in any strict sense. I merely make a personal allocation, but I hope that the hon. Member, if I may say so with respect, and his fellows, will have mercy on those who follow, because everyone's time will now have to be impacted.

12.33 p.m.

Mr. William Hannan: In view of the attenuated time for this debate, I make the promise to my hon. Friends and others that I shall try to compress what I have to say so as to afford an opportunity to other hon. Members to take part.
We welcome the opportunity of this Adjournment to initiate a debate on the need for a fifth university in Scotland. This is now a matter of great public concern and public debate in national newspapers in Scotland, in universities and, above all, in ordinary humble homes where the future education of hundreds of young people is being affected. Parents are angry because, having sympathised with young people in their periods of despondency, and having encouraged them in success, they have sacrificed financially for their progress, but now see those young people's ambitions thwarted.
Teachers are extremely perturbed at the waste of many of their ablest pupils. A new university, in present circumstances, would be a very welcome decision, but the Government, apparently, remain adamant against such progress, despite the human needs of individuals and the country's dire need for trained manpower for the future. The Treasury will not have its calculations upset because in 1954–55 the Government, or their advisers, made no effort to put in hand this essential project. We are now faced with a national disaster. I use those words quite objectively.
The Committee of Vice-Chancellors and Principals of United Kingdom Universities has stated its position in emphatic terms. It is profoundly disturbed at the inadequate resources provided for this purpose. The Educational Institute of Scotland is convinced that a new university is necessary in Scotland not only to provide the extra places needed, but for the development of modern ideas in higher education. It has taken the lead in convening next month a representative conference of all Scottish interests, political, social, religious, commercial, industrial and the Press.
The E.I.S. has taken the lead in the matter, because it recognises that many of the ablest pupils are being denied opportunities for university education. I quote the case of a constituent who, with four passes in four higher subjects and two passes in lower subjects, was refused entry to Glasgow University. Three or four years ago this lad would have been in, but, because of the pressure of circumstances, the pass marks had been raised and, because it took him six years to get one subject instead of five years, he is being excluded. This is a dastardly thing taking place in Scottish education. Formerly, anyone with the ability considered it his birthright, no matter how long it took him to get a pass, to go to university.
As a further indication of the perturbation which is felt, Glasgow University General Council Special Committee calls for a more sweeping advance than the Government have hitherto accepted and for the abolition—or at least the reconstruction—of the Scottish Universities Entrance Board. It calls for simplification of entrance and provision of places for all who can meet the requirements with a certificate not more difficult to obtain. It calls for better university staffing ratios and methods and to cut the rate of those who fail to graduate. It says that there is an urgent need for another university in addition to the expansion of the Royal College of Science and Technology.
The Scottish Union of Students is appalled that the original so-called expansion plan of over a year ago of 170,000 places by 1970—inadequate and ill-considered as it was—is now aimed at, not for 1970, but for 1973–4. Even

if it is reached in 1970, it is calculated that there will be 9,000 places short by that time. Even the Glasgow Herald, which is not a newspaper friendly to this side of the House, must have tribute paid to it for the campaign it has waged and the attention it has paid to this grave social miscalculation in recent years.
Referring to a debate on university education in this House on 26th March, it said in a leader:
it will provide a focal point for discontent, even anger, among people who have no political axe to grind…
The Government's failure is in the allocation of priorities.
For the Glasgow Herald to say that is really dangerous talk, because it was Nye Bevan who said:
The language of priorities is the religion of Socialism.
The newspaper leader also said that it is
hard to believe that they really accept as desirable the version of national priorities suggested by this table of the 1962–63 Estimates and their relation to last year's Budget Estimates. Even if allowance is made for a real increase of £5.5 million in university grants, an alarming sense of values.
Sir Malcolm Knox, Chancellor of St. Andrews University, said that the university expansion programme is being seriously retarded by inadequate finance. The position is more alarming by the admission of the University Grants Committee Chairman, Sir Keith Murray, that the present programme, embarked on a year ago, of 170,000 by the end of this decade will be inadequate and 200,000 places will be required to accommodate all who qualify. Even Chat may be an underestimate. How anyone can contemplate with equanimity a deficiency of 30,000 places passes comprehension when we think of the waste of human brain power and the value that that could be to our country.
Coming more particularly to the need for another Scottish university, one notes that the first sentence of paragraph 14 of the U.G.C. Report states:
In the earlier years of this century when most of the civic universities received their charters…
Before reading the remainder of the sentence, I want to remind the Minister and the House that Scotland had at least three universities by the end of the fifteenth century—not only in the early


years of this century. In the reign of James VI of Scotland and I of England, Scotland had six universities in the sense of having separate degree-granting powers. Even by the 1820s England had only two such institutions, and those were so closely under the control of the Anglican Establishment that many English and Welsh Nonconformists sent their young people to Scotland.
It is a vital part of my case that when, later in the same paragraph, the University Grants Committee says that it has
… had to take into account the differences in the pattern of expansion in England and Wales and Scotland 
it has not given sufficient consideration to the basis from which we start. Does the Minister sincerely believe it right that Scotland which, in the past, and with fewer resources, had five and six universities open to anyone with talent while England preferred to have only two—and those only for a privileged few—should be so handicapped, and lose the advantage she has had for centuries? It is a matter of great concern that today, when we have only four universities, we should be asked to mark time, and to forsake historical and traditional advantages whilst the less perspicacious and more slothful English authorities catch up.
These statements are borne out by recent events in this House. When my hon. Friends and I have pursued the matter of universities in Scotland we have been told to await the Robbins Report. Does the Minister think that that is an effective and adequate Answer, since it has already been decided to provide seven new universities in England and Wales without the advice of the Robbins Committee, and in advance of the publication of its Report?
It must be strongly emphasised that the Scottish system of education is different from that in England, but certainly not inferior to it. In Scotland, the universities are an essential element in that system. It is an integrated system which has prevailed for years. My argument is not based on a narrow, nationalist, parochial outlook. On the contrary, I want the Government seriously to note what I am about to say. I believe that it is the Government's policy that is provoking a tendency to an extremely undesir-

able attitude, particularly in the corporate life of universities.
Students from all over the United Kingdom and, indeed, from all over the world—particularly the Commonwealth and Colonies—should be able to intermingle, but what is, in fact, happening as a result of the scarcity of places? Disappointed and frustrated, many qualified students, their parents, a few teachers and, I regret to say, some people in public life, are, unfortunately, querying why students from England and Wales and other countries are being admitted to Scottish universities while increasing numbers of Scots are being turned away.
Scotland's universities have been international since mediaeval times. It is not just the Scottish potential intake that is relevant here, but the intake of English, Welsh, Irish and overseas students. We are proud in Scotland of taking our share in world education, and it is a great pleasure for us to know that when Julius Nyerere, who was, for a time, Prime Minister of Tanganyika, went to assume his great office, he took with him his landlady with whom he lived while studying at Edinburgh University.
It would, therefore, be a tragedy if this now prevalent but latent undercurrent of resentment against incomers were to erupt into open criticism and opposition. It would be quite contrary to the natural qualities of Scots in extending friendship, tolerance and hospitality to the strangers in their midst. Nevertheless, the Government should recognise that this trend is a by-product of their own policy.
It has long been the practice in Scotland for young people to go to the university nearest to their homes. The two reasons for that were partly traditional and partly economic. We also have a tradition of concern for the provision of higher education, in order to ensure that every girl and boy with the ability, whatever their circumstances, however humble their ancestry, should have the right—the birthright—to enter university. Unless the Government recognise this deeply-held conviction—held with an almost religious fervour—they have learned nothing from our debates and the Questions we have


asked, and will trample on the best aspirations and hopes of our people.
If it is to be part of the Minister's case to repeat, from previous Answers given in this House, the statement that Scotland is doing well compared with England, is that a very good basis for comparison? Why not compare us with the best rather than with the worst? The United Kingdom student population per 10,000 of national population is 19·8, but what about the United States? What about Germany, where the figure is 32·5; or France, where it is 43·3; or Sweden, where it is 39·4? From those figures it will be seen that we still have a leeway to make up. Why not apply to this problem the much-publicised policy of incentives? If, as they say, the Government want to encourage enterprise, foresight, initiative and efficiency, here is their opportunity.
Paragraph 14 of the U.G.C. Report seems to hold the argument and provide the basis for the advice that the Committee gave to the Government. The Committee says that it has had to take into account the difference in the pattern of expansion between England and Wales and Scotland because there were marked differences in the birth rate in the postwar years and that, as a consequence, the number in the 17-year-old age group in Scotland will be much smaller than in England and Wales. The first thing that drew my attention to this was the excellent memorandum submitted by the Glasgow Herald to the Committee, which facetiously commented that it was not surprising that those in the sheltered cloisters of universities should not know the facts when much had come as a surprise to those outside them.
I have had supplied to me by the Library information taken from such authoritative publications as the United Nations Demographic Year Book, the United Nations Monthly Bulletin of Statistics, the Annual Abstract of Statistics and the Monthly Digest of Statistics. I hope that the Government will not refute those authorities. They show that in every year since 1952, Scotland's birth rate has exceeded that of England and Wales, and has, in some years, exceeded that of France, West Germany and Italy. For example, in 1957 the birth rate per 1,000 of popula-

tion in Scotland was 19. In England and Wales, it was 16·1; in France, 18·5; in West Germany, 17, and, in Italy, 18. If birth rate was the basis on which advice was given, a review of the situation is clearly called for. It was on such premises that the U.G.C. said that for every one additional place to meet the required expansion in Scotland, 15 will be needed in England and Wales, and that this is quite disproportionate and totally inadequate.
There is one other point that the Government should note, and that is mentioned in the Report of Sir Charles Morris's Committee on Investment for National Survival, which points out that in recent years there has been an increase of about 1·5 per cent. each year in the proportion of each 15-year-old age group remaining in local authority schools. In all schools, the figure is 1·65 per cent.
I conclude by saying that if the Government are not prepared to act in this matter they will be guilty of a great social crime. I ask the Minister to say whether the Government will reconsider their present policy and begin tackling it as a vitally urgent problem from next year, or do they intend to try to ride the storm and sacrifice a whole generation of young people as a measure of their incompetence? If so, they will have betrayed the high hopes and aspirations of thousands of young Scots who are now studying in our schools, and worst of all, they will have destroyed the faith and trust of the present generation in our word.

12.51 p.m.

Mr. Ian MacArthur: I should like to congratulate the hon. Member for Glasgow, Maryhill (Mr. Hannan) on bringing up the question of a possible fifth university in Scotland. It is not many months since the hon. Member for Glasgow, Govan (Mr. Rankin) raised this question similarly, but nevertheless, I am sure that it is so important in the minds of the Scottish people today that we can well do with another ventilation of the matter and another presentation of the case to the Government.
It is well-known that education holds a special place in Scotland, and that there is a larger regard for the educated mind in Scotland than perhaps is the case


further to the south. The hon. Gentleman has referred to the growing concern that has been expressed in Scotland about the future of our universities. He has mentioned the Glasgow Herald, which has produced a most interesting and forceful series of articles on this question, and which has, I imagine, sent to all hon. Members copies of its very interesting memorandum to the Robbins Committee.
1 feel myself that the nature of the concern about this matter is by no means unanimous. There is quite a lot of conflict of opinion about the direction in which we should go for the next few years. As my hon. Friend the Financial Secretary for the Treasury and some hon. Members will know, I am personally inclined to the view that a fifth university will be necessary in Scotland, possibly in the 1970s. If it is found that that university is necessary, not much time remains ahead of us to do all the immense preparatory work that will be required. Having said that, would it not be ill-judged to reach a rapid decision now, influenced by the comments to which the hon. Gentleman has referred, without having before us the true and basic facts on which, in my view, that decision must properly be made?
The hon. Gentleman has referred to marking time, but I do not think that it is unreasonable to suggest that the marking time must continue for what I presume to be a short time until we have before us the Robbins Report, on which alone a final judgment can properly be made. I say this because my understanding is that the Government have not turned down the possibility of a fifth university in Scotland in time. If I am mistaken about that, and I hope I am not, I am sure that my hon. Friend the Financial Secretary will tell me. My understanding is that there has been no final and irrevocable long-term decision, as has been suggested outside this House.
As I understand it, on the evidence available, the first stage of university development in England has been to authorise the extension of the number of foundations, whereas the first priority in Scotland over the next few years has been given to the expansion of existing foundations. I see nothing unreasonable in that, provided that if the Robbins

Committee shows that the need for a fifth university is proved and exists, the Government will then consider the need for an additional foundation in Scotland.
I come back again to the Robbins Committee and the need for this information, because I have been very impressed in the discussions which I have had privately over the last few months by the degree of contradiction which there is among informed circles. There are certain basic facts which simply are not available, or, if they are available, which I have not been able to find. For example, an essential question in all this is to determine the difference between the applications for university entrance, on the one hand, and the number of applicants making those applications on the other.
There is, I believe, a marked degree of duplication in the nature of these applications, and there does not appear to exist any sort of central clearing house for applications of this kind, so that it is remarkably difficult to assess how much of the demand for university places is real and how much of it is, in fact, unreal.
Whatever decision is reached on the Report of the Robbins Committee, I hope that certain other considerations will be borne in mind. I have four points which I should like to make about it. The hon. Gentleman referred to the long-standing Scottish custom of going to the university nearest one's home. I hope that, with or without a fifth university, we shall be able to dispose of this out-dated approach. We need a very much wider geographical approach now than we have had. I hope that people will not only be going to universities on the other side of Scotland, but I look forward to much more interchange between North and South and between Britain as a whole and the Continent. I should like to see a much wider international movement of people at university level than we see today.
The second point is that in university education in Scotland, I hope we shall not attach so much emphasis to science and technology that the importance of the more liberal arts is overlooked. The importance of science in the future development of Scotland is unchallenged, but, nevertheless, there is an


important place, in commerce and business generally and in our national life, for the liberally-educated man, and I say at once to the right hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland (Mr. Grimond) that I do not say that in any political sense whatever.
Thirdly, if there is to be a fifth university, I hope that consideration will be given to its nature. By that, I mean that I hope it will be a residential university, based more on the tutorial system of education than on the class system, which is widely observed in Scotland.
My fourth and final point is that I trust that while these debates and discussions continue there will be less pressure than there has been—and I am as guilty as anyone—from local authorities and others attempting to draw the possible new university to their own district. What must be decided first is whether the need for a fifth university exists. If and when that need is proved, then the siting can be considered.
Although I am reluctant to say this, I believe that the wise course in this matter is to wait for Robbins, in the same way as, in other matters, we have been advised to wait for Molony. I believe that we must wait for Robbins because it is only against the background of that Committee's Report that the correct position can finally be assessed.

1.0 p.m.

Mr. J. Grimond: I also congratulate the hon. Member for Glasgow, Maryhill (Mr. Hannan). I had prepared a long and extremely interesting speech about this matter, but I shall not now deliver it. But I want to make one or two points to the Government. I do not entirely share the view of the hon. Member for Perth and East Perthshire (Mr. MacArthur) that we should in all respects wait for Robbins. Certain facts of the situation are already quite clear. I do not regard a university as either a status symbol or as an alternative to light industry.
If we are to justify a fifth university in Scotland it must be on grounds not only of education, but of civilisation. The Government will say that the ratio of university places to population is high in Scotland, that some of the older universities—particularly St. Andrews

and Aberdeen—can be extended. That is true. I would favour the extension of St. Andrews and Aberdeen, where some of the Departments are too small.
But let the Government be under no misapprehension that this is a measure likely to lead to economy. If the Government want to extend the universities while, at the same time, keeping up quality, they will have to spend a lot of money, particularly as the hon. Member for Perth and East Perthshire said, in providing some form of residence for students. In this respect, I draw the Government's attention to paragraph 17 of the latest report of the University Grants Committee.
Why is it that staff are leaving our older universities to go to new universities in England? Why is it that lecturers can be found fairly easily for York and Sussex, quite apart from Oxford and Cambridge? There is a tendency for the highest quality of Scottish lecturers to seek employment outside the country altogether. The reasons are fairly well known. The new universities give such people the chance to develop their own syllabuses and their own methods of running departments. The facilities in many respects are much better, and those who go to the new universities feel that they have a better chance of promotion and more chances of influencing decisions taken in the faculties or the departments.
A new university in Scotland would enable experimentation of this sort to be carried out there, and would also provide a place in Scotland to which some of the lecturers and even professors now leaving Scottish universities could go to enjoy more scope for developing their own teaching methods and research.
If the Government turn down the idea of a new university in Scotland they must tackle this matter. The University of Edinburgh has itself appointed a committee to look into its future. The Government must realise that they must inject a greater degree of experimentation into Scottish university education and create better prospects for promotion, teaching and research, and even better living accommodation for lecturers, otherwise they will not keep the high quality lecturers on whom the universities depend.
Of course, the real trouble is money. It is not the only trouble, but without money the four Scottish universities cannot expand or experiment or offer attractive positions to younger lecturers. New professorships must also be provided, which would help in promotion. The provision of a new university would allow some experimentation. Perhaps it could consider the development of a general degree, possibly for people at a slightly earlier age—which would be very much part of the Scottish tradition together with a rather longer course. To get this injected into the older universities under the present regulations is not too easy a matter.
It is for this sort of purpose that I hope the Government will give favourable consideration to the development of a new university. I am not saying that we could not do a great deal with the existing universities, for we could. Some facts are known without waiting for the Robbins Committee. I hope that the Government will say that their minds are not closed about this and that, if they are to put off a decision on a new university, they will do something to rectify known troubles and difficulties in the older universities.

1.6 p.m.

Mr. John Rankin: The hon. Member for Perth and East Perthshire (Mr. MacArthur) reminded me of the debate we had nine months ago on this topic. On that occasion, time did not lay a restraining hand on us as it does today. I, too, must make brevity the very soul of my speech.
The hon. Gentleman reminded me also of something else. This was the disappointing answer which we got on that occasion from the Financial Secretary. I hope that the months which have intervened have given him time for meditation to try to understand the problem a little more fully now than he appeared to do then. I hope that, at the end of this debate, we will have a much more informed, and a better answer, than we had at the end of the debate last June.
The hon. Member for Perth and East Perthshire made two points on which I agree with him completely. But I will qualify one. He wants a residential university. I do not think that we will get that right away, but I hope that

it will be our aim. I desire it to be fully residential, because if a university is to meet the needs of our day it must be a university which will allow students of all races and of all colours to intermingle, and it must provide for the student body the opportunity of having a campus life, which is almost nonexistent in Scotland today.
Since last June—indeed, for some time before it as well—we have had an immense outflow of literature from academic and non-academic sources supporting the idea of a fifth university for Scotland. It is clear to all of us who have studied what these people are saying now, and have said in their memoranda, that they are not making the claim without the factual proof that I agree is necessary to establish it. There may be one or two things which we do not know, but there is no lack of information.
According to the University Grants Committee, £72·7 million of public money is the total income of our universities. That establishes, in my view, the claim that Parliament must take a closer interest, and have a greater say, in the work of the universities. In that way, the hon. Member for Perth and East Perthshire could have the additional information which he said he would like to get.
I disagree with the hon. Gentleman about the Robbins Committee. Are we to establish in this House the principle that what we do depends on a committee?

Mr. Hannan: It applied to the Licensing (Scotland) Bill.

Mr. Rankin: My hon. Friend should not distract me. I am seeking to confine myself to a short time and I do not think that the Licensing (Scotland) Bill analogy will help in this debate. We have had lots of information about Scottish universities, and here I want to pay tribute to the Report by the editor of the Glasgow Herald. He speaks on this issue for Scotland in paragraph 4 of the Report. "We therefore urge the committee"—that is, the Robbins Committee—
to recommend that a new university should be established in Scotland and that Glasgow's Royal College of Science and Technology, under whatever name it may choose, should have the full autonomy and degree-granting powers of a university.


Those are the claims that are being made in Scotland today; and Scottish Members express the hope today that those claims will have greater effect than they had a year ago and produce better results.
In this present session of 1961–62 Edinburgh University had to reject 250 students, quite apart from the large numbers who were not accepted for medicine, science and other faculties. I hope the hon. Gentleman will not say that these were not bona fide applications. Glasgow's rejections were smaller, though substantial. But in every case each of the students rejected for arts possessed the certificate of fitness for entry into a Scottish university. Surely it is a terrible criticism of Scottish higher education that the Scottish Universities Board should say to a student that he is fit to receive a university education, that he should be granted a certificate to this effect, and then to hear the Government tell us there are not sufficient places in which to put these boys and girls.
As my hon. Friend has said, they are denied the application of a principle that is deep in Scottish educational life. If a person is fit for a university education he ought to receive it. These students have certificates of fitness. The stangest thing of all is that the certificate of fitness granted on behalf of all the university bodies in Scotland will be accepted as conferring the right of an applicant to enter a Scottish university; which right he may be denied by another university. That is to say, Edinburgh may take the student. St. Andrews may refuse to do so. That is a very strange anomaly.
We may say that a person is fit to be educated in a university, but often there is no chance of doing that in Scotland because Edinburgh University, for example, can expand very little. The same applies to Glasgow University. It is ill-sited for expansion; and because it could not expand to meet all the numbers proposed its grant was reduced in September of last year. This is surely a further substantiation of the claim that if we are to provide for the requirements of Scotland in the realms of higher education a fifth university is absolutely essential.

1.14 p.m.

The Financial Secretary to the Treasury (Sir Edward Boyle): I should like to say, first, that I am well aware, because I read the Scottish Press regularly, of the concern felt about this matter; but I hope that all organs of public opinion in Scotland will realise the difficulty in which the House has been placed through circumstances entirely beyond its control. Occasionally we are accused—particularly the Government—of dealing in too short a way with subjects when really, through no fault of our own, the House is under conditions of difficulty.
I should like to congratulate the hon. Member for Glasgow, Maryhill (Mr. Hannan) for raising this topic today. I shall, of course, consider the figures that he mentioned. I want to make only two comments initially on his remarks. I think that he said, first, that the target of 170,000 university places was a Government commitment for 1970. I do not think that we ever said that. The Government statements have always referred to the early 1970s. This figure was made a specific commitment for the first time by my right hon. Friend the Chief Secretary to the Treasury in the last debate on the universities when he specifically related it to the year 1973–74. I think that was the first time that a specific date had ever been associated with that target.
The other point the hon. Member made, in which I was interested, was that the statistics show that the Scottish birth rate since 1952 has been higher than the English birth rate. Speaking as something of a keen student of these questions of population, I again say to the hon. Member that the known birth rate figures for both England and Scotland were taken into account in reaching the U.G.C. estimate. But, of course, it is still true that the rate of increase in the number of 17-year-olds will be smaller in Scotland than in England.
While I agree that we should not be too ready to discuss matters which are still under consideration by the Robbins Committee, there are some matters which we should discuss even perhaps before the Robbins Committee has reported, and I am very glad that we have


had three debates on university education within a year. I have no doubt that the Robbins Committee will take due note of the greater interest taken by the House of Commons in these questions. But it remains true that the Government hold firm to their decision that no further universities in England, Wales or Scotland will be nominated before the Robbins Committee reports next year. On that point, the Government's decision remains firm.

Mr. Rankin: It is wrong.

Sir E. Boyle: A good deal of concern has been expressed not only in the House, but in the Scottish Press, too, about the scale of university expansion in Scotland. May I say, as an Englishman, that I appreciate what Scottish education has contributed to education not only in Scotland, but south of the Border as well.
England is enormously indebted for very many fine head teachers from Scotland — particularly headmistresses, perhaps. Certainly, we all have much to learn from the great tradition of thought in Scotland, and particularly what I happen to be especially interested in, the tradition of the Scottish enlightenment of the eighteenth century.
Unlike the situation south of the Border, the Scottish student with the bare minimum entrance qualifications has traditionally had little or no difficulty in finding a place in a university. Over the past five years the number of students has increased by 20 per cent. to the present figure of over 18,000, of whom—this is important—over a quarter come from outside Scotland. While the pressure on places has grown, and will doubtless continue to grow as a result of the tendency to stay on at school longer, it is fair to say that pressure is still less severe than it is in England.
With the increased Exchequer grants which have just been announced for the coming quinquennium I expect that the Scottish universities and the Royal College of Science and Technology will be able to provide for further substantial expansion of student numbers. Until a clearing house for applications has been established, it is impossible to say

how many qualified applicants are at present unable to find a place but I believe that this has been a substantially smaller problem so far in Scotland than it has been in England.
As I said in the general debate the other night, one has to consider the very considerable expansion which is taking place in the central institutions and colleges of education. The 15 central institutions—that is, excluding the Royal College of Science and Technology because its statistics are included in the university figures—at present accommodate about 4,000 students in advanced courses which are broadly comparable to those courses leading to a first degree. This number is planned to rise to between 6,000 and 7,000 by 1970, which will be an increase of over 50 per cent.
The seven colleges of education—the teacher-training centres—have at present about 5,500 students and these colleges are being expanded to accommodate at least 6,500 students by 1967. So there will be provision by 1970 for about 13,000 students in higher education outside the universities, about half as many as are in the universities themselves. It will, of course, be for the Robbins Committee to consider what are the most appropriate lines of development for the different types of institution concerned. I think that, when one looks at the picture as a whole, Scotland is not being unfairly dealt with in the increased provision of facilities which has been made and which is being planned.
Looking ahead to the future, I believe that by the year 1973–74, to which the Government expansion figure is related, it will still be true that the native demand, so to speak—the demand by Scotsmen for places in Scottish universities—will be more than met. But, of course, it has always been the Government's view that university expansion must not be considered merely in relation to England, Wales and Scotland, but must be related to the United Kingdom as a whole. After all, it is part of the tradition of Scottish universities to receive people from south of the Border, and this will certainly continue.
The Government's plans throughout have been based on a Great Britain


figure and, as hon. Members will remember from the debate which we had the other week, the Government's point is that during the bulge in the birth rate the same proportions of the relevant age groups will go to the universities as today and then from 1966–67 onwards a substantially higher proportion of the university age group will be able to find a university place.
Scotland's needs have been fully recognised and the recent confirmation by the Government of the future level of the university building programme means that Scotland will receive its 10,000 places additional to the number mentioned in 1961 when the programme was first announced. Indeed, as a result of the continuous review of the programme carried out by the University Grants Committee, the amount allocated to Scotland has risen since last June from £9·3 million to £12·5 million and the additional 10,000 places to which I have just referred virtually represent the equivalent of two new universities.
I was interested to hear what the Leader of the Liberal Party said about new universities as opposed to existing universities. We must await the Robbins Report on this point, but I assure the right hon. Gentleman that, in so far as the Treasury has any voice in these matters, we are very well aware of the question of relative costs of expansion in new universities compared with existing universities. When an existing university is expanded beyond a certain point the problem of arrears and obsolescence becomes rather acute. A new library has to be built, not just for the extra students, but for all of them. I do not say that as a hint on what will be recommended, but merely to show that that important point has not escaped us in trying to get as much money as possible for essential expansion.
I am sorry that I cannot say more than this to the House. We had a debate on this matter two or three weeks ago, when the Government explained their target for the United Kingdom as a whole. We told the House that we intended to deal, during the period in which the bulge is affecting universities,

with the existing problems of the relevant age group getting a university place, and we hope to show that a substantial improvement has been made when we get to the end of the present quinquennium.
I am sure that many people would agree with what my hon. Friend the Member for Perth and East Perthshire (Mr. MacArthur) said in his interesting speech, namely, that we must not lose sight of the importance of liberal studies in the universities. We tend to talk about liberal studies and the sciences as though they were separate things. The intellectual aspect of mathematics has always been considered a part of the traditional curriculum for abler pupils, and that is as it should be.
I am sorry that I cannot say more than this, but I am very glad that much more interest is being taken today than ever before in the subject of university expansion. My right hon. Friend the Chief Secretary made it plain in his speech that not only were the Government prepared to consider university salaries again next year, but that the whole question of the recurrent and non-recurrent grants and how they were working out would be considered again in two years' time.
On the particular question of a fifth university, we must wait for the Robbins Committee's Report, because the Government have made it plain that, until its Report is published, we are not going to designate any new universities.

Mr. Rankin: May I intrude on the courtesy of my hon. Friend the Member for Bishop Auckland (Mr. Boyden) for a moment to make a correction?

Mr. Deputy-Speaker (Sir Robert Grimston): The hon. Gentleman has not the right to speak again. He can ask a question before the Financial Secretary sits down.

Mr. Rankin: I should like to make a correction in my speech, Mr. Deputy-Speaker. I said that £72·7 million was being invested in the universities. I should have said that 72·7 per cent. of their income came from Parliamentary grants.

EDUCATIONAL RESEARCH

1.25 p.m.

Mr. James Boyden: Many more people than are assembled here today are grateful to Mr. Speaker for selecting this subject for discussion. It is a rather specialised subject, but it is of very great interest to many hon. Members, and, of course, it is of great importance. I am grateful for the interest taken by my hon. Friend the Member for Sunderland, North (Mr. Willey) in this matter and for the encouragement which he has given us. I am also grateful to the Minister of Education for his courtesy in coming along this morning to reply to the debate.
The natural starting point for any discussion on the need to provide more money and facilities for educational research is paragraph 697 of the Crowther Report. Let me read the last two sentences of that paragraph:
In view of the very large sums of money that are spent on education every year, the expenditure on educational research can only be regarded as pitiable. If there is to be a consistent programme of educational development, almost the first step should be to review the provision for statistics and research.
I am aware that the Minister is doing something about this, but I must confess that, when the Crowther Committee made this statement, I was very disappointed that on this not quite such important matter as raising the school-leaving age the right hon. Gentleman again soft-pedalled. He said that more research was going on than the Crowther Committee bad time to discover and concentrated on what he called intercommunication between research teams and customers.
The right hon. Gentleman said that inter-communication of research was nothing like as good as it ought to be. That of course, is not confined to educational research. A great deal of Government and local government activity is not communicated to the public and to other people as it should be. It seems to me that this is a relatively minor matter, although I hope the right hon. Gentleman will say something about the steps that he proposes to take to improve the lines of communication.
The bodies in the field—the local education authorities, the teachers'

organisations and the individual teachers—have shown much more interest in educational research than has the Ministry. Some items are not communicated, but this difficulty of communication often arises from the part-time nature of teachers' and university tutors' research and the inadequate resources behind them. However, no one can say that the local authorities and the teachers' organisations have not supported to the full the various foundations—the National Foundation for Educational Research, the Foundation for Visual Aids and the National Institute for Adult Education—over a fairly long period.
I must remind the Minister that these foundations were set up in days of great difficulty. They were all conceived about the end of the war and were founded in 1947. They have done a very good job on very inadequate means. It is not their fault that the results are not better than they are. I think that a general criticism which can be made is that we are not, as a nation, research-minded enough. My hon. Friend the Member for Edmonton (Mr. Albu) has reminded us of this, very rightly, on many occasions in relation to industry.
The President of the Royal Society has on two recent occasions criticised the Government for inadequate support for research. There was the occasion of the annual meeting of the Royal Society and there was the more domestic occasion, when, I think, the Minister was present, of the annual luncheon of the Parliamentary and Scientific Committee. At that luncheon, Sir Howard Florey told the Committee:
As Sir Edward Appleton told your Committee last year, university research is now the poor relation of the scientific world in Britain. We are, in fact, not utilising to the best effect some of the most precious material this country has, and we are as a consequence dissipating our energies. University scientists who continue to make many of the discoveries of which this country is proud have not the facilities which the pursuit of science in the modern world demands, and so their ability to compete in making discoveries is depressed. By facilities I mean accommodation, the supply of qualified and technical assistants and freedom from the sometimes almost intolerable burden of cadging support from a multiplicity of sources such as foundations, Government Departments and even the United States Government, because the universities have inadequate funds at their disposal.


That fits in very well with our earlier discussion today on the foundation of a fifth university in Scotland.
My plea today is in general terms for far more attention to research in the social sciences and, of course, for research into educational matters. There was striking evidence to the Robbins Committee from Committee N of the British Association for the Advancement of Science as to the relative lack of research facilities in sociology, social psychology and social anthropology. I quote from the Committee's memorandum some words of Lord Adrian, who, in 1954, drew attention to the need for a much greater emphasis on the social sciences when he said:
There must be more social scientists in our universities so that the rising generation can see what they are like.
The Home Secretary was saying something like that not long ago, in relation to a conference inaugurated by him.
Just as immediately after the war and in the first few years following the war a lot of attention, which has not continued—at least, not at the rate it should have done—was directed towards educational research, so there was a resurgence of interest in and money spent on the social sciences. The late Hugh Dalton was one of the strongest protagonists of the freedom of universities and the State provision of money for them to get on with things in their own way. A good deal of this resurgence was due to his efforts in various ways. After 1955, however,—I must draw attention to the fact that there is some coincidence between the Minister's office and what followed—interest and funds fell away and the general level of interest was not maintained.
I therefore quote the evidence of the British Association to the Robbins Committee that as a result of that falling away and Jack of Government interest:
We are now in the position of being unable to provide nearly enough individuals of sufficient experience and maturity to fill the many posts which are becoming available. This lack of consistent policy in developing the social sciences within the university framework has very greatly added to the difficulties of building up a body of knowledge and methodology suitable to the study of the rapidly changing social conditions in Britain and other parts of the world.

That is why the Minister has to say, "I cannot get enough statisticians. I do not know where to turn for well-trained social workers". It is precisely because insufficient attention has been given to these matters over the last ten years that now that the Minister is a reformed character and has much more interest in the matter, he cannot find the people to do the researches that he may wish to encourage.
I must confess that on 18th October last year, when he was addressing the National Foundation for Educational Research, I did not consider that the Minister's remedy—
I suppose that means having more conferences, courses, and so on
—was quite the answer to the problem. The problem is a fundamental one. One would expect the right hon. Gentleman's Ministry to be well in the lead in this respect, not only in encouraging educational research, providing the money for it and consulting local authorities regularly as to the sort of information he wants from them, but also acting, perhaps, as an agitator with the other bodies concerned and with the Chancellor of the Exchequer.
The Minister said on that occasion that he was expecting generous grants from private foundations. It is extremely difficult to believe that we are in such a sad condition that the Government should be expecting private foundations to aid the sort of research which is fundamental to the answers, and even to posing the questions that will produce the answers, which we ought to have in education.
I congratulate the Minister on his bigger and jazzier statistics of education. Once again, however, I must draw his attention to page 37—the four assumptions on which he is building his anticipation of the number of children in school—and some of the demographic factors which are important in making, I was about to say, guesses, but, better than that, informed projects of what the situation might be in 1980. If the right hon. Gentleman, the Minister of Health and his other colleagues had taken more interest in demographic research generally, there is no doubt that some of those assumptions would be much finer intellectual instruments for getting the correct answers by 1980.
These things cannot suddenly be done. The burden of my complaint today is that it is no use coming suddenly as a reformed character and saying, "Now that I am interested in educational research, we will get some of the answers." The staff and buildings are not there. Even the public opinion is not there unless it is built up over a long period. In these fundamental questions of demographic research, we in England are sadly lacking.
I quote again the British Association evidence to the Robbins Committee:
So far as research is concerned, there is still insufficient realisation by the University Grants Committee—and often by universities themselves—that social fact-finding, by means of intensive and extensive field and documentary research, is both essential and very expensive.
We have to face these things. These matters are vital and will cost a good deal of money. I shall be surprised today, although I shall be pleased if he offers something, if the order of the Minister's offering is adequate to meet our needs.
The Minister knows that of the education bill for £800 million only £150,000 is spent on educational research. He will recollect that when he first became President of the National Foundation, one of his first tasks was to cut the grant in 1955 from £5,000 to £2,000. After this lapse of seven years, we are pleased to know that he has raised the annual grant from £3,000 to £7,000. We welcome his Answer to my hon. Friend the Member for Edmonton this morning that he is making a number of ad hoc grants and some specific grants to the foundations.
The fact remains, however, that even if the figures were doubled, what is being spent on educational research is what meteorologists call a "trace". The D.S.I.R. makes a grant for research in whitewash almost as; great as the right hon. Gentleman does in educational research and it makes a slightly larger grant for research into glue. The total spent on research into cast iron, welding and ceramics is in each category £¼ million, or getting on for twice the total spent on educational research.
I admit that the right hon. Gentleman has said that the public is now beginning to get interested in this matter. I quote him again:

There comes a time when the public says, 'But we are spending £900 million a year on this business' "—
of education—
'Oughtn't you to know more about it?'
Then, he made an engagingly frank remark:
If you realised the number of Parliamentary Questions to which I have to return the answer 'We do not know' and we do not want to ask the L.E.A.s. what the answer is because it would give them so much trouble".
That frank remark indicates an administrative lack in a lot of important educational research matters.
Here again, it is not a matter which can be done by circular. Quite obviously, the right hon. Gentleman ought to be asking local authorities for the pattern of information which he requires for his research. He ought to be asking them to install the sort of apparatus which is required so that over a period he can get nearer to the answers to the questions he wants to put. So many of the facts need to be examined over a long period. Research needs to be long-term, it needs to be organised and it needs to be planned.
The suggestion that I put to the right hon. Gentleman is that in every major educational undertaking, in any new ones—it applies to old ones as well, but in the new ones, such as the comprehensive school, technical college expansion, or the three-year teacher training college programme—there should be built into the administrative system research arrangements to find answers to the problems which these changes put up.
Policy decisions, naturally, are for the Minister and the local education authorities, but policy decisions can be made very much more accurately, and can be made very much nearer the mark, if they are based on scientific study of the facts around those decisions. Everyone knows that the decisions of this House are an amalgam of expediency—I am not saying that in any rude sense: politics is the are of the possible—of prejudice and political prejudice which is based very often on a feeling quite wide in the community, but within those limits the right hon. Gentleman ought to be in the lead in trying to make decisions as scientific as they possibly can be.


Perhaps I can put it in analogy. Research can go a good deal of the way in deciding whether, for example, coeducation is really a good thing. It ought to be directed, for instance, to the length of the schools' lesson periods. We do not do much study of the fatigue in children or teachers. More interest and money are spent on studying the fatigue of metals than fatigue in children and adolescents going out to work.
When I pressed the Minister of Labour recently to look at the connection between juveniles' accidents and fatigue he brushed me off. This is the sort of lack of scientific interest which bedevils many matters where the Minister would be able to do the things he wants to do if there were scientific backing for the things which needed to be done.
Over the last sixty years there has been a good deal of progress in the science of educational measurement, and we now have, for example, the analysis of the 11-plus. We are very much better informed about how children can be expected to behave. This is not an argument whether the 11-plus is a good or a bad thing. It is a political judgment and an administrative decision which has to be made by the Minister, but we can now much more accurately than ever before measure children's intelligence to the degree of being able to say, given 11-plus, that it is within 10 per cent. accurate—or 5 per cent. each way.
Is my hon. Friend the Member for Sunderland, North noddling agreement or indicating agreement? Anyway, at least in the courses which children take it can be predicted whether they are likely to be successful, and it can be predicted that some will be quite hopeless. We still need, however, to pay much more attention to the subject of child growth. I do not want to cause a split in this party but we have made some progress in measuring intelligence, but we have made much less in measuring children's emotional reactions.
One of the reasons why we have made progress, apart from the 11-plus, was the exigencies of war. I can remember very well the kind of offhand attitude towards "boffins" and research in 1939 and 1940 in relation to officer selection, in relation to aircrew selection. Somehow, between

1940 and 1942 a revolution occurred, and we were able to select aircrew much more scientifically than ever before and with quite staggering results from the point of view of efficiency and from the point of view of the nation's economy and needs. This is the sort of thing, in matters of education and social effort, which in peace time, we tend to ignore. I hope that the right hon. Gentleman, when he replies, will give us some fundamental answers, some long-term answers to the sort of things which are required.
For example, I cite some of the sorts of problems which could be answered by research scientifically, and which would be of great importance in matters of policy decision. It is estimated that only 7 per cent. of S.I. students actually complete their National Certificate courses within three years. The Director of the National Foundation of Educational Research reckons that his organisation, with adequate support, could halve this wastage. If the right hon. Gentleman would follow my suggestion, and would see that organised research is devoted to this problem over a long period, I have no doubt that the value of the results would be far and away in excess of the expenditure.
I do not want to lecture the right hon. Gentleman, for I am sure that he knows this very well, but I think that I ought to put it to him that I hope that in tackling this problem he will bear in mind that there is very often among administrators some reluctance to encourage research because the results upset their conventional attitudes. The results too are very often slow, and under the pressure of activity all the time they want speedy decisions and they are not prepared to wait. Politicians are even worse. I say this about both sides of the House. Politicians are always crying for "a break-through" to save their reputations, but good results do not happen without solid research behind them, and real study going on. In a public house one can have a wonderful argument about the modern child's literacy and ability to read, and yet, in fact, this is one of the things where scientific study has made accurate information avalable and the average person's prejudice look silly.
I have mentioned questions where better research would ensure better policy


decisions. Even the size of classes is a matter which should be investigated, because while we would support the general principle that there ought to be more teachers and that classes ought to be smaller, I think that it could be stated without fear of contradiction that for some purposes a large class would be suitable, while for some other purposes a small class would be more suitable. One of the assumptions always made is that grammar school classes need to be smaller than primary school classes but it is made on no foundation whatsoever.
Even at the risk of having my dogmatic assertions overruled I would be prepared to accept scientific evidence. We know very little about what I may call job analysis. We know more about training capstan lathe operators than about the training of classroom teachers. We select aircrews very much better than we select teachers. These are some of the problems. I was pleased to see that the right hon. Gentleman was supporting Manchester University on the problem of grammar school wastage, but, again, that one approach is hardly likely to make the real impact which is required.
I now put to the right hon. Gentleman a number of practical proposals. It is highly desirable in educational research that the careers of educational psychologists and the people who want to go into this work should be given some degree of certainty. The Director of the National Foundation of Educational Research has said that one of his great difficulties is having a careers structure for people above the age of 30. I am sure that if the right hon. Gentleman could do something about this, in collaboration with his colleagues, so that people interested in social science, in particular in this field, could know they were to have a stable and rewarding career, it would be all to the good.
Secondly, could the right hon. Gentleman depart from the tradition of ad hoc investigation as a subject comes up? We started this practice on early leaving, then there was the Crowther Report, the Robbins Committee and the Anderson Committee all doing a number of jobs and doing them very well, but doing them much more expensively and hastily than they could have been done if these problems had been surveyed over a

whole length of time. I also urge the right hon. Gentleman to consult local authorities not only so that he may be able to answer Questions, but also deal sometimes with much more fundamental matters.
I understand from Answers to Questions today that the right hon. Gentleman is increasing grants to some of the foundations. Will he have a look at the National Institute for Adult Education, a tiny field of activity in which I am interested? The right hon. Gentleman has given it a research grant which is appreciated, but there is a need there for a continuing line of development in research. Perhaps it is too late now, but I put it to the Minister that it would be good psychologically and probably economically as well if there were a central building for the foundation to which I have referred. I have not consulted the foundation on the subject, but on the face of it it would seem highly desirable that it should be concentrated in one place though operating under its own controls.
There ought to be a Council for Educational Research on the lines of the other D.S.I.R. councils. I will not develop that argument, but I think that some of my hon. Friends will take up that point. There is no doubt that we need more international co-operation in research. We also need more intensive local research. The problem of university entrance examinations is one which is crying out for investigation. I hope that the Minister will have something to say about that.
Could the right hon. Gentleman also give attention to using the inspectorate for publishing surveys not of matters which one might call pure educational research, but on the factual information which can be used by administrators over a wide field? I should have thought that what the inspectors have said about books and the quality of libraries could be put in a more scientific form that is the case at the moment and thereby could be used as a measure in assessing the need. The hon. Member for Beckenham (Mr. Goodhart) will understand if I say that I sometimes disagree with him about the measure to be used, but a measure of some kind would be very useful to local authorities and those who are interested in the subject.
The same applies to physical training equipment, playing fields and special subject rooms, where one wants a picture of what is currently being done—not a measurement of the more imponderable things, but only a pure assessment of what the local authorities are doing and what is needed.
Finally, I hope that the right hon. Gentleman's sudden devotion to educational research will not lead him to use projects which are now going on as grounds for not taking further action. The last thing that we want in pushing educational research is for the right hon. Gentleman to use this as an excuse for saying that we do not think it necessary to have a policy decision because the matter is sub-judice. Recently, I asked him if he would expand the number of places in residential adult colleges.
The foundation of one or more colleges would not affect the general educational situation very much. Most of the facts about these colleges are known. We are getting tired of hearing that the right hon. Gentleman is waiting for a Report—in this case the National Institutes Report on Staffing and Accommodation—as a reason for deferring a particular policy decison. I await the right hon. Gentleman's reply with great interest, because I hope that he will be able to say something constructive, although T shall be surprised if he goes the whole way with us.

1.57 p.m.

Mr. Philip Goodhart: I should like to congratulate the hon. Member for Bishop Auckland (Mr. Boyden) on choosing to raise this subject. It is many months since I have agreed so much with a speech made by any hon. Member opposite. Some forms of research are more valuable than others. Only a few days ago a desperately earnest research worker who said he came from Yale University came to see me. He asked whether I had heard of the Commonwealth Immigrants Bill. He then handed me a very large questionnaire which included the question, "Do you feel hungry almost all the time?" Those of us who are taking part in this debate may, alas, miss our lunches, but for the life of me I find it difficult to see what that question had to do with political developments.
I hope that in looking at this problem of educational research the Minister will use his influence even more strongly than he has done in the past to direct the research that is carried on into fields which have immediate general relevance. Of course, we need theoretical research into the problems of learning, but I believe that there is an even greater need for research into what could be called the technological problems of our schools.
Like the hon. Member for Bishop Auckland, I have my own shopping list of projects which I should like to see investigated. Like many hon. Members, I still hope that it may be possible to implement the Crowther recommendations on raising the school-leaving age, but, of course, this will produce great problems within the curriculum of how to retain the attention of the 16-year-olds who are less academically gifted. I wonder how much research is being devoted to that subject.
I, also, have read the letter in The Times Educational Supplement this week from Mrs. Garton on the question of how long periods of teaching in schools should be. The first paragraph of that letter reads:
Time-tables in the majority of our grammar schools are based on the assumption that 40 minutes is the ideal length for a lesson, and the school day is accordingly divided into seven or eight sections of 40 minutes. I respectfully submit that this is erroneous, that it does not take into account the conditions prevailing in modern schools, does not meet the requirements of teachers and their pupils and is a serious cause of frustration and waste of time.
Mrs. Garton may be right or wrong, but it is a most important subject which ought to be investigated seriously.
The hon. Member for Bishop Auckland also raised the question of the size of classes. I agree with him that much more research could be done into this. Perhaps it could be possible to expand the size of classes in such subjects as art, handicraft and physical exercises while using the teachers freed during those periods to concentrate on arithmetic and reading where the need for smaller classes is quite obvious.
As to communication, many of our best teachers become head teachers. It we could persuade head teachers to devote more of their time to actual


classes we should be making a major contribution, because we should be returning to active classroom work hundreds of the best teachers we have. I wonder what stimulation could be given by widely citing the example of head teachers who did get back into their own classrooms.
Then there is the problem of books. I am a fanatic on this particular subject. It seems rather strange to me that basic research on this problem should have to be undertaken by the National Book League in conjunction with the Association of Education Committees. I would pay considerable tribute to the research that these organisations have carried on. I think, however, that much more ought to be done by the inspectorate on the lines that the hon. Member for Bishop Auckland has indicated.
There is also the immense problem of teachers leaving the profession. It is generally assumed that most teachers leave the profession because they are getting married and are intent on raising families. I wonder whether this is the basic reason in the large majority of cases. I think that a good case can be made out for much more research among those who leave the profession about the reason why they decided to leave, and particularly to find out how many of them who get married and raise families have any intention of returning to the profession at a later time. This would have an absolutely basic effect on the position of teachers in the next decade.
Then there is the problem of the best use of our teacher-training colleges. We have spent millions of pounds on building admirable teacher-training colleges during the last few years and highly skilled staffs are then assembled to train the students, yet the vast majority of the teacher-training colleges are in fact shut for 18 to 20 weeks in the year while everybody goes on holiday. I wonder whether we are making the best use of the tremendously expensive facilities that we are providing with such difficulty.
I am sure that my right hon. Friend is well aware of these and other problems. A start has been made for a more positive Ministerial approach to

these problems of educational research and I hope that it will soon go bustling ahead with much greater speed.

2.15 p.m.

Mr. Sydney Irving: I want to thank my hon. Friend the Member for Bishop Auckland (Mr. Boyden) for the opportunity, short though it is, of speaking on this subject today. I fully appreciate that hon. Members have only four or five minutes at their disposal in which to make speeches. I welcome the Minister's interest in research, and I hope that today he will give us some proof of his sincerity by telling us that he will set aside rather more substantial sums of money than he has ever done before for this purpose.
There are two tendencies which have discouraged research in the past. The first is that we have regarded teachers as born and not made. No doubt there are many teachers who can recognise intuitively or instinctively the great surges forward in a child's development, those periods of growth which have to be stimulated and fed, and who have the natural power of revoking from the richness of their personality a response in the children. These people are very precious and we need more of them. In the processes of the training and selection of teachers and the practice and administration of education, the assistance that scientific research can give is immeasurable and invaluable.
I think that the second tendency is that we have tended to regard education as an art and not a science and, therefore, not as a suitable subject for scrutiny with scientific rigour or scientific method. The idea that education is a subjective thing, an intimate contact between the child and the teacher, will remain. This feeling that we ought not to apply the scientific method to education, however, has led to a massive neglect of research in education, and I feel that there is much fear and resentment and, perhaps, some prejudice to be overcome both among some teachers and some parents about this approach.
I think that it is probably fair to the people engaged in educational research to say that they would much rather regard it as a study or evaluation. I think that they are all too conscious of the defects and of some of the limitations of the tools that they are using


and of the difficulty of giving precision to their definitions. I think that they are convinced—as I am convinced—that such study, if not, however, providing certainty, will be infinitely better than the guess-work on which most of our policy-making has been based in the past. They are sure that, given time and money, they will be able to devise suitable tools and that definitions can be evolved which will make it possible to cope with some of our most complex problems.
In the past, we have been caught on more than one occasion in an educational straitjacket of unverified theory which we have had eventually to abandon. Perhaps the most important that we remember is the age-old idea that the faculties of memory, observation, reasoning the abstraction can be trained by the use of one or two disciplines, largely unpleasant. We were trapped for many years in this framework from which we could not escape. Happily, we have abandoned that. How many other straitjackets is education wearing at the moment that it could abandon with equal benefit?
An example of the effect of research flowed from the announcement a year or two ago by the National Foundation that it had discovered that there were as many children with attainments above I.Q. as below it. This has had considerable results. It started a great controversy and many people rushed to defend their reputations. But that is not a point for me. The real point is that what this did was to extend the horizon in the treatment not only of educationally sub-normal children, but in the whole range of children below average. I am convinced that this idea that every child below average is a candidate for remedial treatment has opened the way for a tremendous revolution in the methods by which we approach the teaching of below average children, and I can see in the future a considerable advance in this respect.
I should like to say one word about organisation. We are embarking, I hope, on what should be a tremendous expansion in research. Professor Thwaites, in his inaugural lecture at Southampton, pointed to the fragmentation of our educational system. We have universities under the University Grants

Committee and the Treasury, technical education under another system, examinations under the Schools Examination Council, and schools under the Minister. This fragmentation has prevented the proper co-ordination and planning of education. I think that we need to draw all these things together. But research should be the exception. We should not have the main effort in research under the establishment which is responsible for the practice and administration of our educational service. We need research to be separate. If it is to be most fruitful and profitable it must be independent and capable of that opportunity for intellectual scepticism which is really the core of all successful research.
Therefore, I hope that there will be a separate council and that, if possible, the National Foundation itself should be extended to carry out the main stream of research forming a completely independent body of opinion which can bring into the education service a leavening and fruitful stream of opinion and knowledge which can be of benefit. The main inhibiting factor is that of not having enough research workers. I believe that we could profitably spend about £250,000 annually without exhausting the available supply of research workers and with very considerable and valuable results. I believe that in the expansion of research there can be very great rewards. Especially should there be rewards if we can, in the words of Dr. Wall, exchange the cosy but relatively inefficient "I think" for something much more effective, like "I know". As he said, the rewards will be able to be calculated not only in economic terms, but in terms of human effectiveness and happiness.

2.11 p.m.

Mr. Austen Albu: I rise briefly to support my hon. Friend the Member for Bishop Auckland (Mr. Boyden) and to congratulate him upon the admirable way in which he opened the debate. I do so with some embarrassment perhaps because the right hon. Gentleman the Minister of Education knows that I have a declarable interest.
I want to refer to what my hon. Friend the Member for Dartford (Mr. Sydney Irving) said about the possibilities of improving the productivity of education. This is sometimes felt to be a very


materialistic idea. However, anybody who has read the words of Mr. John Vaizey, particularly his work on the economics of education, realises that this is by no means so. The idea is an extremely broadminded and humanistic one.
The right hon. Gentleman received a deputation from the Parliamentary and Scientific Committee, Which owes its initiative to his hon. Friend the Member for Bath (Sir J. Pitman). This Committee put forward the idea of an independent educational research council, although I think this might well be part of a much broader social science or human science research council, as my hon. Friend the Member for Bishop Auckland has suggested.
The right hon. Gentleman must admit that the amount of money at present being spent in this direction is deplorable. It is estimated to amount to £125,000 a year, compared with about £4½ million to the Medical Research Council and £5£ million to the Agricultural Research Council, and this for an industry Which is spending about £800 million a year. The total amount that the right hon. Gentleman is now voting—I understand that the grant to the National Foundation is £27,000—is a pitiful sum. The figure he gave me this morning of grants so far allocated amounting to £12,000 a year does not add up to more than two or three major projects.
The methods of research are frequently misunderstood. This is not just a question of collecting statistics. That might well be a form of natural history. Really scientific researches in the social sciences are exteremely difficult and complicated tasks which take very considerable time. These subjects—many of them have been mentioned today, and I do not intend to repeat them—are not for investigation by amateurs. They can be investigated only by trained social scientists, psychologists, sociologists and so on. The methods should be subject to very rigorous discipline. Otherwise the results are not worth producing and lead to a great deal of scepticism.
No one is claiming that the methods of the social sciences yet have the precision of those of the natural sciences, but they are developing very rapidly, although they are very unsupported in this

country. The methods are very often complicated and take a good deal of time, as well as trained staffs. In most of the fields with Which we are concerned we are dealing with the development of young people and they need following up over a number of years. Therefore, we do not get very much from a single project involving £10,000—£15,000.
My hon. Friend the Member for Dart-ford referred to the shortage of research workers. This is a vicious circle. Research workers can be trained only through research, and if there is not enough money available for research, not enough workers will be trained. There is no doubt that as in many other fields of the social sciences, particularly those which support the administration, we are spending far too little money at present, and I hope that the Minister, to show his interest, will use his influence to get a great deal more money spent in this way.

2.15 p.m.

Mr. Frederick Willey: The House is greatly obliged to my hon. Friend the Member for Bishop Auckland (Mr. Boyden) for promoting this debate and the way in which he has opened it, and to my other hon. Friends for the contributions which they have made. I am extremely sorry that I shall have to be brief. I was looking forward to hearing myself make a substantial speech on this important matter. I shall be brief because I am anxious to hear what the right hon. Gentleman the Minister of Education has to say to comfort us.
By way of preface, I would say that we should recognise some of the enormously important work that has been done in educational research. Unfortunately, it has been on too limited a scale. However, I should like to recognise the interest of the right hon. Gentleman. I think he is aware that there is a very real and pressing need now for greater resources to be devoted to educational research.
I would mention two general factors, which I have noticed when looking at education. First, one gets in education more opinionated people than in any other field of activity. Very strong views are held about education matters by


people who are very intelligent and very well educated but lack a spirit of genuine basic inquiry about the validity of the views which they hold.
As to my second general point, I do not think that we realise sufficiently often that in modern times a significant change has taken place in education. Until comparatively recently, education was a universal matter, scholarship was universal, but in modern times there has been a catastrophic fragmentation of education and this has now provoked intense nationalistic competition in education.
It seems to me that this is something with which we must deal in two ways. Again, I pay tribute to the right hon. Gentleman. I think he has been at any rate conscious of the importance of providing research, and international research, in education. I have always welcomed the fact when he has attended international conferences on education. We must be aware that, particularly in the free world, we have to seek ways and means of learning from one another rapidly and improving our education. At the same time, we must realise nationally that, because of this fragmentation, there is a much greater burden upon us to promote more educational research.
I had hoped to have time to deal, like my hon. Friends, with some of the issues, about which the right hon. Gentleman and I would probably be dogmatic, but upon which we need far more basic information and research. I differ apparently from my hon. Friend about the 11-plus. I would concede that there has been more educational research directed to this point than probably to any other point in the education system. What we know now about the 11-plus is that what we regarded as dogmatic truth not so very long ago is now open to question. We know that the research of people like Sir Cyril Burt is at least fallible and does not reveal absolute truths. But our system of secondary education is based largely on those conclusions being infallible.

Mr. Boyden: The point that I was trying to make was that here was a field where for about thirty years there has been a great deal of research and a fair degree of progress has been made. I agree that there is still a very great deal

of error. My argument was that if that was so with all that amount of time and energy devoted to it, how much more do we need time and energy to be devoted to other aspects.

Mr. Willey: I was about to arrive at the same conclusion. Recently I was looking at Dr. McIntosh's book and being driven to the conclusion that one of the primary factors is something which will now become increasingly popularised, something called "motivation". We now apparently want research about motivation if we are to determine how a child is likely to do. We also want research, to give another illustration, into the wastage in grammar schools and into such matters as were brought out in the recent study on "Education and the Working Class". I am sure that the right hon. Gentleman will agree that these are all vitally important questions about which we all know too little.
However, it is a comforting thing, on this the last day before the Easter Recess, that not only have we some signs of the growing recognition of the importance of research within the Ministry, but we have also a new feeling in the right hon. Gentleman's advisory committees. Only recently these committees, comprised of distinguished educationists, were content to advise the right hon. Gentleman with very little research. But this pattern is rapidly changing. The Crowther Committee conducted some research and we believe that the Robbins Committee is carrying out a considerable amount of it. This all shows that there is a new attitude towards education.
Since I have promised to be brief, I will make just one proposal to the right hon. Gentleman. The Parliamentary and Scientific Committee has suggested the setting up of an Educational Research Council. In one respect I differ from that committee; I would not advise that such a council should be responsible to the Lord President, but to the Minister. If one promotes research on a wider scale one needs an element of independence, and the way to get that is by having such a council with an independent chairman. At the same time, I believe that one ought to pursue close relationship between such a council and the Ministry.
Until the right hon. Gentleman has such a council, he will not get the money and resources he must now recognise are necessary if we are to have research on a sufficient scale. Personally, I would not wish to see a divorce between such research work and the Ministry and, for that reason, I hope that the right hon. Gentleman will seriously consider this proposal and also use his influence to see, if he can succeed in gaining acceptance for such a council, that there will be close association between the council and himself.

2.22 p.m.

The Minister of Education (Sir David Eccles): It is indeed a good sign that both the first and second debates on the Easter Adjournment should be on education matters. I doubt if that has ever happened before and I am sure that hon. Members on both sides of the House welcome that as a sign of the growing interest in education in all its aspects.
The aspect of research, with which we are dealing now, is of very great interest to the Government and we are grateful that the subject should have been tabled by the Opposition and for the way in which hon. Gentlemen opposite and my hon. Friend the Member for Beckenham (Mr. Goodhart) have approached the debate. It has clearly come out that there is a slight mystery as to why educational research has been neglected, compared with other forms of research. Listening to the debate I thought that, after all, men have always been anxious to explore physical nature, the surface of the earth and now the heavens above. They have always been ready to spend vast sums of money on studying the health of their own bodies. But they have certainly not been so ready to put time and money into exploring the unfolding and furnishing of their own minds, particularly the minds of the children.
There must be a substantial reason for this. The hon. Member for Dart-ford (Mr. Sydney Irving) came near to the answer when he said that education should be considered as a science, whereas it has been thought of as an art. There is much in that. We are dealing with individuals and there has been throughout the ages great hesitation about treating individuals as though

they were just units in a pattern and, of course, religion has had a great deal to say about this. It is an obstacle to research—we should not say that this obstacle is insurmountable—that we are dealing with children whose parents—and, indeed, most people—consider each to be something special in its own right. I was, therefore, interested in the suggestion about doing research work into the merits of co-education. It is extremely difficult to do this because if one is to say to a research team, "Will you tell us whether it is better for girls to be educated alongside boys, or separately?" one must have some sort of idea in one's mind as to what one wants the girl to be like when she leaves school and goes out into the world. Will she be a better person, having passed her exams, or will she make a better wife? These are not easy questions to consider.
They are value judgments and, when people say to me, "Please institute a piece of research into the relative merits of this or that type of secondary school", one often cannot do that without first having a view of what kind of people one wants to produce and what sort of society it is desirable to have. These things are difficult to put in terms of strictly educational research. I only say this because several hon. Members have asked why we do not set up an educational research council. This is a big question and one which should be discussed with my noble Friend the Lord President, because if there was a council it should cover the social sciences and not simply education. I cannot see, having given the sort of examples I have, that there is a very easy frontier between one of the social sciences and another. Therefore, I undertake to talk with my noble Friend to see what he has to say.
It is right to suggest that a great deal more research has been done in education than is generally known. It is a pity that the universities have waited for so long to come into this field, but they are coming in now. It is rather curious that they, who are the guardians of research and the pioneers of the frontiers of knowledge, should have taken so little interest in teaching methods, for example, which touch the heart of their practice. Still, they are now willing to come into this field more than before.
Hon. Members have mentioned the National Foundation of Educational Research and I add my tribute to the work it has done. I hope that the good effects of the grants which I am now able to give will be more easily seen as the applications come in for more projects. It is not always easy to get sound applications and, in the Youth Service, we have found it difficult in the first two years after the Albemarle Report to spend the money we had allocated for these projects.
This takes time, and I hope that we shall be able to increase the grants. But I think that it is right that I should first be in a position to prove to the Chancellor of the Exchequer that I need the money and that will take a little time.
The Educational Foundation for Visual Aids is doing good work and our grant to it will be useful.
The local education authorities are in possession of a lot of valuable source material and I should like to see them do more research. There are some chief education officers who are very interested in research. If he were here, the hon. Member for Southampton, Itchen (Dr. King) would know about the valuable research done in Southampton by Dr. Dempster into the development of the secondary modern school, and selection methods. Local education authorities can do more and I encourage them to support the research foundations with money. Their subscriptions to these foundations rank for general grant, so that it is part of the public's money drawn from both sources.
The teachers themselves have an important part. They are the people best able to see whether methods of teaching are yielding good results. Quite often, one feels that the teaching profession is insecure in its sense of its professional status. One of the things which would greatly help would be if it accepted the duty, which other professions have accepted, of undertaking more research than it now does, to provide its own members with knowledge and with better methods in practice. What the teachers have done is good and I welcome it. I will encourage individual teachers or groups of teachers, or the teachers' associations to pursue more research.
The Science Masters' Association and the Association of Women Teachers of Science have studied the science curriculum over three years and most valuable new syllabuses have been produced. It is on the basis of that piece of research, which the teachers have done out of hours, burning the midnight oil, that the Nuffield Foundaion has come forward wih its £250,000 for a project to which I shall refer later. Other teachers' associations might well emulate what the science masters and science mistresses have done, because it has redounded very much to the credit of the profession as a whole.
I think that my own Ministry has rather hidden its light under committees in past years. They have done excellent work and I am most grateful to the very distinguished people who have sat on the Central Advisory Council and all my other advisory councils. But, as has been said, they are asked to undertake ad hoc and specific investigations when they are ready for a new remit to be made, as for example, with the Crowther Report.
The Central Advisory Council for England is now looking into precisely what my hon. Friend the Member for Beckenham asked about, namely, the teaching of the 13 to 16-year-olds who are average or below average and whose interest it is essential to keep when we raise the school-leaving age, and, indeed, to get more volunteers to stay on now. I agree with my hon. Friend that one of the most important gaps in our knowledge about teaching at the moment is how to strengthen the course at the top of the secondary modern schools and the secondary modern streams in comprehensive schools so that they attract children who are not of what I might roughly call the grammer school type.
Her Majesty's inspectors—there are about 400 of them—are the silent service of education, or at least they have been. By tradition, these devoted men and women keep quiet. They publish a good number of bulletins of guidance—more than forty since the war—some of which are best sellers. All the profit goes to the Treasury, but I cannot help that. They are published anonymously and I know that they have been very useful to teachers and local authorities, but I


am conscious that the talents and experience of the inspectorate are not, or have not been, mobilised to the full. Therefore, I am extremely glad to say that it is from the inspectorate that 50 per cent. of the staff of the new curriculum study group inside my Ministry will be drawn.
That leads me to the administrative changes that are now being brought about for the purpose of expanding in this sphere of research and intelligence. There are three branches. There is the new branch inside the Ministry, the Research and Intelligence Branch; there is the Curriculum Study Group; and there is a much stronger Statistics Branch. When these three units are really going we shall see the growth of what we all want.
Behind these administrative changes lies a concept of the method that we ought to use from our side in approaching these questions, and here we think it right to draw on the experience of our Architects and Buildings Branch. The A and B Branch—it is too well-known for it to be necessary for me to describe it today—has done a wonderful job in school building, and indeed the Comptroller-General in his Report said that it had saved £230 million in economies in school building. If this figure is anything like true, it is a real argument for those who want us to press on with research in other quarters.
The method is to gather a team composed of experts, who have not previously sat down together to pool their skills for a particular object. In this case it means administrative officers, architects, builders, local authority officials, and, of course, teachers. As a result of getting these people round a table every day and all the year, we have been able to produce efficient, economic, and, I believe, beautiful new schools.
Here is a going piece of research machinery which is turning its attention to a whole list of further projects, among which are the following. First, the remodelling of old schools. We need to apply this technique to them. Secondly, the planning of science accommodation. It is quite clear that science accommodation in secondary schools needs to be reconsidered. Thirdly, designing secondary schools for the 'seventies. This is

a very advanced project, but I have every hope that whoever is Minister in the 'seventies will find that the staffing ratio in secondary schools is altogether better than it is now. For this we need a different layout. We need especially a good deal more teaching space and more space for rooms for members of the staff. Then a boarding school for maladjusted children is being planned. A lot of work is needed for this. Fourthly—and if my hon. Friend the Member for Buckingham (Sir F. Markham) were here I think that he would be pleased to hear this—we are again having a look at lighting in schools. Finally, we are considering maintenance costs of schools built in the modern manner with modern materials, finishes, and so on. All this is by way of illustration of how far one can go if there is machinery that is working properly.
Turning now to the Curriculum Study Group, this group, staffed jointly by Her Majesty's inspectors and by administrative officers, will do a number of things. Perhaps for the moment its major task will be to identify gaps in our knowledge which might be filled by research. It will then be the job of the Research and Intelligence Branch, which is acting as a common service to all branches inside my Ministry, to see which of those gaps can be filled, and who should do it. More often than not it has to be done by somebody from outside, but stimulated in one way or another by R and I Branch.
Two kinds of project need to be considered. The first is the project which is put up to the Ministry from outside. The hon. Member used the word "sceptical", and I agree that research has to have a certain scepticism about it. There naturally ought to be complete freedom for people outside to say, "The Minister is asleep. He does not realise that this wants looking into. We think it should be. May we have some help?" I hope that we shall have an increasing number of these applications. In order to assist me to decide between various applications I propose to invite a few experienced persons to act as a committee of advisors. That has proved useful for the Youth Service, and I think that it will prove useful here. As we get going I trust that I shall have arguments to use for the expansion of the


financial help that we can give to research.
The second kind of project is that which is initiated inside the Department, to assist the Minister in policy decisions. A great deal has to be done in that respect. At the moment we are embarked on a study by the Curriculum Study Group of examinations below the G.C.E. level. That comes out of the Beloe Report, and it has become clear to me that some tremendous questions are involved in what sort of examination should be put before boys and girls who will not reach the O level.
I also mentioned at Question Time this morning that we have given the National Foundation for Educational Research a grant to go into the merits of day release as against block release. That is our initiative. I am grateful to the National Foundation for taking it up. This kind of thing is extremely difficult, looking forward to the organisation of the lower-level technical colleges, and to the time when, perhaps, the young worker under the age of 18 has a statutory right to day release. One must know something more about whether we should organise the taking up of that right, if it should come, either by block release or by day release, and in what sort of proportion.
Another question that is very apposite at the moment is the need to know a little more about the question of the grounds upon which we should decide the proportions of the total building programme to be allocated respectively to the major and minor works programmes. Hitherto, that has not been a very important question, because we have known that we could not do other than meet, in the major programme, the demand either for schools for children who otherwise would not have schools or for the reorganisation of the all-age schools.
We are getting through these. We shall always have some such requirements, because of shifts in population if not of actual increases, but we are getting to the time, a few years hence, when remodelling or replacement of old schools will be able to claim a much larger proportion of the total building programme. We do not have enough information to make a really accurate judgment about the way in which we should allocate the capital programme.

That is why I have instituted a new survey of all buildings.
Hon. Members may say, "Why did you not do that before?" There is one technical reason. The processing of all this information, which is on a very wide scale, requires a computer. It is only because we are going to have a computer that we shall be able to make useful deductions from these questionnaires. I hope that that shows that we are at any rate trying to keep abreast of modern techniques.
I should just like to illustrate what is going on in the science teaching field because it shows, I think, how necessary it is somewhere or other to have a coordinator. I mentioned that science masters and mistresses had done a wonderful job in preparing the way for a project which is being taken up by the Nuffield Foundation. They are going to have teams of practising teachers working under Nuffield fellows and advised by very high-powered committees, for special subjects, and the study group in my Department. They will look into the science curriculum. But it does not end there. As they come up with new ideas and suggestions we must see that the Architects and Building branch is doing something parallel in the matter of building science laboratories. We must see that the equipment for science teaching is kept up to date.
There is a new consortium of manufacturers and local authorities under the aegis of the London County Council called the Science Equipment Consortium which is going to do for science equipment, particularly demonstration equipment, what we have done for some building materials. It is going to design science equipment and to see that it is mass produced. And then, perhaps, we may get science equipment as good as the schools in Germany have. Of course, the universities—Oxford, Manchester and Southampton, to mention only three—are themselves conducting research into science teaching. That has to be tied in with the Nuffield project.
Finally, there is the whole field of visual aids which must be intensely interesting to those who are concerned with science teaching in our schools. So there is need for somebody somewhere or other to take the various pieces


of work going on and to fit them together. I believe that that is the proper job for the Ministry to do, and we shall do it to the best of our ability.
There is a specific question which I feel I should answer. The career of research workers is an important question which we shall have to tackle in different ways. I am going to have talks with the National Foundation about it. It may be that one of the things we could do would be to get teachers who are keen on this sent to the National Foundation for a year's course—I would not tie myself to one year necessarily—where they would get expert knowledge. I believe that some interchange between teaching, administration and research would probably be helpful and fruitful, but we have a good deal to discover there before I could be certain how it could be done.
I apologise to the House for speaking so long, but, in brief, the machinery which we have set up consists of the following: better statistics—and we have at least managed to recruit another statistician; a Research and Intelligence branch to help in co-ordination both outside and inside the Ministry; and a Curriculum Study Group which will be responsible for the many immensely important pieces of work that ought to be done within the field of curricula and examinations.

JUVENILE VIOLENCE

2.49 p.m.

Sir Richard Glyn: We have listened to two debates on education concerned with the instruction of normal juveniles. I wish to raise today a point affecting a small number of abnormal boys who represent a very different though none the less very important problem. I am grateful for this opportunity to raise a subject which is of increasing importance to the public and to all concerned with the administration of justice.
In the debate on the Address in 1958, I referred to the alarming increase in juvenile violence and pointed out that the courts were now confronted with a new style of offence committed by a new type of offender. I showed that the number of convictions for violence

against the person by juveniles under 17 had doubled in the four years between 1953 and 1957, because the courts had not adequate powers to deter these young thugs and thereby protect the public. Since I spoke I have had many letters on this subject from all parts of the country, and I have had my attention drawn to cases so disgraceful that I feel bound to raise the matter once again.
There are fewer reports of these cases in the newspapers today because now we have reached a stage where every week over 270 people are being wounded by these thugs and individual cases attract less public attention. To give an example, the News of the World used formerly to give prominence to these cases. Now they are mentioned only if someone is actually killed, or a policeman wounded, or if there is some other unusual feature. Statistics show that in the three years since 1958 the number of convictions for juvenile violence by boys under 17 has doubled again. In 1960 the figure was running at no less than four times the figure for 1953, and the courts still have no effective deterrent, because detention centres are having no effect on this problem as I shall show. Meanwhile the public suffer.
At the Conservative Party conference at Brighton last October my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary heard it said that at recent local elections many people in built-up areas were unwilling to open their door at night because they feared being attacked. These people had to be canvassed through locked doors. My right hon. Friend agreed with what was said about people not wanting to go out at night. He said that it was perfectly true of built-up areas.
I think this a disgraceful state of affairs. Unfortunately it is not confined only to built-up areas. In many parts of the country, including my own constituency, old people living alone are afraid to open their doors at night. They fear the violence of young hooligans. They are torn between the hope of a friendly visit to brighten up the long lonely evenings and the fear of violent juveniles. Too often fear wins. The knock on the door remains unanswered and their loneliness remains unrelieved.
At the Brighton conference my right hon. Friend said that he would never


deviate from the path of deciding questions strictly on the evidence which came before him. I propose now to put forward some evidence on this important subject. First, as to the scope of the problem. Since 1938 indictable offences, that is the more serious kind of offences, of all kinds have increased by 109 per cent., which is another way of saying that they have rather more than doubled. But this increase, it is important to note, has not been evenly spread over the different types of offences. Such offences as larceny, fraud and false pretences show only a small increase of between 60 per cent. and 70 per cent., which is below the general average. Other offences of dishonesty, like breaking and entering and receiving, show increases of nearly 200 per cent., which means that they have nearly trebled. Offences of violence against the person show an increase of over 600 per cent., which is to say that they are now seven times the figure for 1938; and these offences have increased in number much faster than any other sort of offence.
Moreover the increase in cases of violence against the person is not evenly spread among the different age groups concerned. Convictions for offences of this kind involving offenders of 30 years of age and over show an increase of 240 per cent. For offenders between 21 and 30 the increase is 630 per cent. But the increase in the number of convictions involving juveniles under 21 is no less than 1,550 per cent., which is another way of saying that these young thugs are now committing more than 16 times as many acts of violence as before the war. The increase in acts of violence by youths under 21 is three-and-a-half times greater than is the increase in respect of adults of over 21.
It appears that the present system of deterrence has wholly failed to cope with these violent juveniles, and this in spite of the fact that the detection rate for crimes of violence is very high, about 66 per cent. in 1959, against the national average of 44 per cent. of offences of all kinds known to the police. I think that conviction deters only when the courts can inflict a suitable penalty, which is not the case at present in respect of these violent young thugs who are not dishonest.
I stress that we are now faced with a new sort of problem. Before the war, violence was almost always associated with robbery, or some hope of financial gain, but present-day juvenile violence is not in any way associated with dishonesty. It is an aggravated form of bullying, carried to excess and highlighted by the use of dangerous weapons. To give a topical example, only two weeks ago a group of young thugs forced their way into a church hall in north London where a dance was being held and proceeded to smash up everything within reach with clubs and coshes. Four youths in the hall had to be taken to hospital with stab wounds, one being dangerously hurt. No one knows why the attack was made or how the victims were selected. By a sad coincidence, one of the stabbed boys was the brother of one who was killed in a similar affray a few years ago.
It is important to realise that the majority of young thugs who do this kind of thing have never been involved in any crime of dishonesty. They are violent, but not dishonest. Official figures show that the proportion of youths convicted for violence who had never been convicted of any form of offence was, 80 per cent. under 17 years of age and 70 per cent. in the age group 17 to 21. This is a very important fact which makes them unsuitable in the eyes of the court for remand homes and detention centres where they would mix with young thieves and from which the courts believe they would emerge dishonest as wall as violent. In the minority of cases where youths combine violence with dishonesty the courts find no objection to sending them to a penal institution. No problem exists for men over 21 who are less likely to be contaminated by thieves, but for violent youths who are not dishonest the courts at present have no effective deterrent no matter how serious the offence has been.
During the last twelve months no fewer than four youths under 17—one was only 12—have been charged at the Old Bailey with murder. One was actually tried for murder and convicted of manslaughter, to which each of the other charges were reduced. In every case those boys had intentionally stabbed a fellow creature who died from the wounds inflicted. In every case the defence counsel and probation officers


pointed out that because they had no record of dishonesty there would be dangers in sending them to detention centres and other places where they would mix with dishonest youths. In every case the Old Bailey judge concerned, after inquiry, decided against the detention centre and in each case these four youths were put on probation.
The proportion of youths under 21 charged with violence is rising tremendously in London. I am informed that in the last two years at the Old Bailey charges of violence constituted no less than 33 per cent. of all charges brought against youths under 21. Charges against youths under 17 also show a tremendous increase and include most serious offences, such as murder, manslaughter and, unfortunately, attempted rape. The truth is that violent children are now committing adult crimes and the penalties originally appropriate for violent adults are not suitable for these violent boys. The opinion of the courts as to the incidence of dishonest youths in detention centres is fully borne out by an analysis published by the Cambridge Institute of Criminology, which states that of a total of 959 youths undergoing detention, 498 were sentenced for breaking and entering, 458 for larceny, while those detained for violence numbered only three.
The reluctance of the courts to sentence honest but brutally violent thugs to detention was emphasised in tables VIII, IX and X in last year's Criminal Statistics, which show that out of a total of 3,592 youths summarily convicted in magistrates' courts for offences of wounding, 2,996—or about six out of seven—were dealt with by probation, bind-over, fine, or conditional or other discharge. They show that 194 of the older youths went to prison and 128 to remand homes or approved schools, while only 56—or 1·5 per cent.—were sent to detention. So much for the impact of detention centres on violent but honest juveniles.
Most modern psychologists who have written about the problem of modern juvenile criminals have based their reports on those who could be studied in institutions; in prisons, borstals or detention centres—to which, as we have seen, these violent young thugs are

seldom sent. One or two of them, however, have studied the problem at first hand, and some of these have made practical comments on the mentality of this new type of violent youth who is not dishonest.
For example, Mr. T. R. Fyvel, who has made a close personal study of these young thugs, includes in his book The Insecure Offenders, a section headed "Fear of Authority". Unfortunately, the fear which he reports is not the wholesome fear of the authority of the courts but the fear felt by a group described as being "particularly reckless 16-year-olds" for the heavy hands of the police in a certain area. Mr. Fyvel quotes one informant, and I requote:
No matter how tough these young fellows think they are, they remain dead scared of the police. They know once the police get them into the cells, they won't be handled with kid gloves, and that knowledge is always on their minds.
I say at once that it is entirely wrong for any policeman to act in such a way towards any offender, and no evidence was quoted in the book to show that the police ever did misbehave in this way. But there was clear evidence that these particularly reckless young 16-year-olds carefully avoided the area in which they feared that the police would act in that way, and that that knowledge was always on their minds.
It is unfortunate that the courts have no power to order legally what these particularly reckless 16-year-olds were so afraid the police would do illegally. I should like to see this respect which Mr. Fyvel reports transferred from police suspected of using force illegally to courts with power to order judicial corporal punishment legally—and that over the whole country and not confined to any one area.
In view of the total failure of the pre-sent policy of detention centres and similar institutions, which are recognised by the courts as being unsuitable for violent but not dishonest juvenile offenders, I ask that an inquiry should be instituted as a matter of urgency; that a committee be instructed to make a specialised study of the problem of juvenile violence, and to report as soon as possible whether or not there is evidence in favour of the reintroduction of judicial corporal punishment for this


limited type of offender. The extraordinary increase of this type of offence and the absence of any appropriate deterrent form a combination which, in my submission, demands prompt action.
The attention of the committee for which I ask should be directed to the standard of proof which the Cadogan Committee demanded from those who supported judicial corporal punishment which, it said, would be justified if any one of three conditions could be proved. In the somewhat stately language of those days, the Committee required either
… facts and figures showing that the introduction of the power of ordering judicial corporal punishment had produced a decrease in the number of offences for which it may be imposed, or alternatively, that offences for which it may be ordered have tended to increase when little use was made of it or to decrease when that power was used frequently.
A committee with its attention focused on this subject of iuvenile violence will have no difficulty in finding conclusive evidence of every one of these three conditions, each of which in itself would, by the standard of the Cadogan Committee, justify the reintroduction of judicial corporal punishment for violent juveniles.
I should add that these three points were republished in the same words with approval by the Barry Committee, and, in order to save time, because this matter is urgent, I will briefly outline the evidence available on these three points. The earliest evidence in point of time is a scrap of evidence in the report of the Cadogan Committee itself. The only part of this Report limited to violent juveniles and the facts concerning them is Table 5 of Appendix III of the Cadogan Report, which shows that youths under 21 who had undergone judicial corporal punishment for violence were less likely to be reconvicted for violence than those who had not undergone judicial corporal punishment for violent offences, the proportions of those reconvicted for violence being 4½ per cent. for those who had undergone corporal punishment and 13½ per cent. for those who had not. This is quite a significant difference, which was overlooked, I think because the attention of the Committee was not focused upon this particular aspect of the problem.
More recently, the Barry Committee's Report gives a picture of the state of present-day informed opinion on judicial corporal punishment. Paragraph 21 states that the Lord Chief Justice had submitted a memorandum in favour of judicial corporal punishment, which had been approved by a great majority of the Judges of the Queen's Bench Division, and other persons concerned with the administration of the criminal law. Paragraph 22 states that 70 per cent. of the magistrates were in favour of the reintroduction of judicial corporal punishment, and over 70 per cent. of the witnesses who appeared before the Barry Committee were stated to be in favour of judicial corporal punishment, especially for juveniles. The opinion of the magistrates is of special importance, because in 1948 the great majority of magistrates were persuaded to believe that judicial corporal punishment was no longer necessary, and this very marked change of opinion is the result of their practical experience in the courts since 1948.
The Barry Committee states on page 2 of its Report that until 1948 the courts retained the power to order judicial corporal punishment for boys under 14 convicted summarily of any indictable offence, and for boys under 16 convicted of certain offences against the person. In the next paragraph, there is a statement which has been widely quoted and which has led to some misapprehensions. It states:
For juveniles, the use of corporal punishment had almost died out by 1938.
The Report goes on to refer to the figures in Appendix B, which gives the number of sentences of judicial corporal punishment on juveniles from 1930 onwards. This Appendix makes it clear that sentences of judicial corporal punishment on juveniles after 1938 were more numerous than in the eight years before that date, the actual figures being 1,254 in the eight years 1930–38, rising to 1,445 sentences on juveniles in the next eight years, an increase of about 15 per cent. In other words, the Appendix makes it clear that judicial corporal punishment for juveniles had by no means died out in 1938. I wrote and asked the Chairman of the Committee what this sentence was intended to convey. He replied explaining that it referred to the date of the publication of the Cadogan Committee's


Report, and so it would appear that the sentence in question was not intended to suggest that juvenile corporal punishment ceased to be used on juveniles in 1938.
In fairness to the Committee, I must make it clear that no one who reads that sentence in conjunction with the appendix could possibly be misled even for a moment. But unfortunately it is not everyone who reads appendices to reports. This ambiguous statement has been widely quoted in speeches and broadcasts and has given the false impression that judicial corporal punishment for juveniles went out of use before the war. This is important, because there was a marked increase in juvenile violence during the war which was mastered by a corresponding increase in judicial corporal punishment.
By 1944 and 1945 this wave of violence was beginning to decrease and with it the need for corporal punishment. My right hon. Friend the Home Secretary told me that in the two years before 1948, when the courts lost power to order corporal punishment, offences of violence by juveniles showed a decrease of 29 per cent., and that in the two years after 1948 offences of violence by juveniles showed an increase of no less than 38 per cent. That was a significant change of trend at the very moment when the courts lost the power to order corporal punishment and it constitutes precisely the second condition set out by the Cadogan Committee—and that to a very marked degree.
In the same year, 1948, cases of assault against the person, which had fallen to a very low figure, actually doubled and showed a further increase of 50 per cent. in the following year. That is to say, these offences trebled in two years when the courts lost power to order corporal punishment. Similarly, cases of malicious wounding, which reached a peak in 1945, showed a 20 per cent. increase in 1948. There has been a further increase every year since then. Last year there were over 12,000 cases of malicious wounding. Cases of felonious wounding—which is a more serious offence—brought the total of woundings to over 14,000 last year. This was an average of more than 270 a week.
We have now to consider the two other conditions put forward by the

Cadogan Committee and, for the benefit of any committee which I hope will be appointed, the answer will be found in statistics from the Isle of Man. I have been in touch with the authorities in the Isle of Man, where neither the method of recording convictions nor the substance of the criminal law are appreciably different from the practice on the mainland, except so far as they relate to corporal punishment.
At first sight, it is not easy to relate criminal statistics for the Isle of Man to the mainland, because the permanent population is no more than about 50,000, which is about 1,000th of the population of the mainland. But, of course, this figure of 50,000 is swollen during the summer months to over half a million, and this influx of visitors makes its own contribution to the criminal problems and statistics of the Isle of Man. If we multiply the Isle of Man's criminal figures by 1,000, we bring them into line with those of the mainland. But this is to assume that every offence on the island is committed by one of the permanent inhabitants and none by visitors, Thus, this form of calculation is somewhat unfair in representing the criminal propensities of the population of the Isle of Man as being higher than is the case.
Let us suppose, however, that all indictable offences of violence are committed by residents of the Isle of Man. Even multiplying their figures by 1,000, their record is still infinitely better than the record of the mainland. Offences of violence for which corporal punishment can be awarded on the island total 52 in the last ten years; multiply that figure by 1,000 and we get a total of 52,000. On the mainland, of cases of wounding alone, there were about 10,000 offences every year, which is double the average of all offences of violence committed on the island, even after allowing for the difference in size of the population.
This abundantly fulfils the first condition set out by the Cadogan Committee and adapted by the Barry Committee. For juvenile offences the figures are even more striking. The total number of juvenile offences of violence in the Isle of Man in the last ten years were one-seventeenth of the number committed by juveniles on the mainland


in last year alone, after allowing for the difference in population. The difference, therefore, is very striking.
The Isle of Man statistics also fulfil the last of the three conditions because here it was discovered that youths between 17 and 21 years of age were committing increasing numbers of aggravated assaults, and this was an offence for which up to two years ago they could not be beaten. By the summary Jurisdiction Act of March. 1960, the Isle of Man gave their courts the power to beat for this offence. This power was used. I think that five out of six of the first offences of this nature which came before the courts resulted in corporal punishment, and the incidence of these offences immediately dropped by 33 per cent. in the first twelve months.
Here again we have a marked change of trend. Where there was an increase of violence, and corporal punishment was extended to cover these offences there was immediately a decrease, just as in 1948 on the mainland, where there was a decrease, and corporal punishment ceased to be permitted, there was a very sharp change to an increase. I might say that all difficulties with regard to the infliction of corporal punishment in the Isle of Man are overcome shortly and simply, and the Committee will have no difficulty in getting information on this point.
To overcome the difficulties involved in waiting for an appeal, the Committee might consider the advantages of a suspended sentence, corporal punishment to be carried out in the event of a further conviction for violence within two or three years. The suspended sentence would come into force on a conviction for violence after the time to appeal against the original sentence had expired. In this case the sentence would be carried out on the rising of the court at the time of the second conviction, as is the practice on the Isle of Man. This would be a real deterrent to a young thug because, in the words of Mr. Fyvel's book, the sentence would always be on his mind.
I appreciate that there are technical difficulties in the suggestion. I realise that there are idealistic and legalistic arguments by people who regard it as impossible for us to do on the mainland

what so effectively protects the public on the Isle of Man. But I differ from those who regard the public merely as raw material upon which fascinating young criminals weave their patterns of pain and fear. I for one do not regard the public as expendable. I believe it is our duty to give the courts adequate power to protect the public against these young thugs. Against the doubts which may affect some people must be put the tremendous weight of pain and suffering which the public have to bear and the shocking nature of some of these offences which are being committed so regularly.
I hope it will not be suggested that these crimes of violence, whose number has increased so considerably, are not serious crimes. I have had my attention drawn to a great number of the most shocking cases of violence by boys no older than school children, including the most wanton cruelty to younger children, and in many cases lives were endangered. The shocking nature of some of these cases is augmented by the fact that they appear to have been carried out merely in a desire to terrorise or to inflict pain.
It would be wrong to detain the House with examples, of which I have the most formidable list, but I will mention one or two. Two boys aged 10 and 12 met two 5-year-olds on a lonely spot. They tied up the boy and beat the girl with an iron bar, taking turns to do so, for a period estimated at about an hour. The doctor who treated her injuries said that it was one of the worst assaults of his experience. A 10-year-old boy attempted to murder a child of three by strangulation and would have succeeded but for artificial respiration. This was a case of bullying because he had lost his temper, as he had done many times before.
There have been dozens of similar cases, dealt with almost invariably by probation or nominal fines because the children concerned were honest and came from good homes and were considered unsuitable for institutional treatment.

Mr. Godfrey Lagden: Can my hon. Friend tell us what penalty was inflicted in the first of the two cases which he has just mentioned, which were terrible cases?

Sir R. Glyn: I understand that one child was put in care and the other was put on probation.
Thirteen-year-old schoolboys have been convicted on many occasions for wounding and vicious assaults on younger children who have been deliberately and painfully burned and, in some cases, had initials carved on them. At the age of 14 many schoolboys have quite formidable records of violence and have never been sent to an institution.
One such boy was put on probation at the age of 12 for attacking a woman. A year later, while still on probation, he committed another offence and was put on probation a second time. On a third occasion, while still on probation, he entered a dwelling house in which a young housewife was alone, produced a knife, forced her upstairs and acted in such a way that he was convicted of wounding and of assaulting her with intent to ravish. Then, at last, he was sent to an institution.
The plain fact is that the courts have not adequate powers to deter these vicious young schoolchildren who are committing crimes formerly committed only by adults. Only a tiny proportion of the modern generation is behaving in this way, but over and over again it is being done. Groups of schoolboys go out with weapons at night looking for what they call excitement, which takes the form of injuring some innocent fellow citizen.
Another very serious aspect of this problem is the increase in savage and brutal attacks on dumb animals. Our courts are not equipped to deal with sadistic but honest boys such as those who took an air gun and deliberately shot out the eyes of a horse in a recent case. Whether a fine or probation is suitable retribution in such cases is a matter of opinion, but it is a matter about which some people have strong opinions. Neither sex, age nor infirmity provides protection against these vicious youths who know no pity for anyone weaker than themselves.
Some months ago a youth watched a blind man tap his way towards a public lavatory. Many people would have felt compassion, but the Teddy boy concerned saw only a chance to inflict

pain. He followed the blind man, a complete stranger, and, for no explained reason, according to the evidence, kneed him in the groin, punched him in the stomach, butted him in the face, banged his head against a wall and left him lying bleeding on the ground.
I for one do not believe that such boys are susceptible to argument or to gentle persuasion. A way must be found to protect the public against such vicious young thugs. I am not anxious to see boys beaten but merely wish to see the public protected. On the Isle of Man, no one, however old or infirm, is afraid to answer the door after dark. In many parts of England people will not answer the door at night, and, as my right hon. Friend agreed, with good reason.
In the name of humanity, I appeal to my right hon. Friend to take effective action, and without delay.

3.24 p.m.

Mr. Eric Fletcher: As time is short, I intervene only very briefly. The hon. Member for Dorset, North (Sir Richard Glyn) has given us many statistics about juvenile crime and crimes of violence. I am sure that none of us would wish to under-estimate the effect which they are having on certain sections of the public, but I do not think the hon. Gentleman is justified in drawing the conclusion that he has drawn.
There is no evidence that public opinion would support the reintroduction of corporal punishment judicially inflicted. I think that, apart from some agitated sections of opinion at Conservative Party conferences, public opinion generally is that the real deterrent is certainty of conviction, that the new Act recently passed should be given a fair trial and that it would be a brutalising, degrading and reactionary step to reintroduce flogging and birching.

3.25 p.m.

The Joint Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department (Mr. Charles Fletcher-Cooke): This is certainly a serious subject and we all agree in deploring the serious crimes that my hon. Friend the Member for Dorset, North (Sir Richard Glyn) has mentioned. I should begin by telling the House that the Cambridge Institute of Criminology,


which has been engaged for some time in studying crimes of violence, is soon to publish its report. I am sure that it will throw valuable light on these questions.
My hon. Friend told us that the number of male offenders under the age of 17 found guilty of violence against the person was increasing in every year and, in 1960, was six times what it had been in 1948. That is perfectly true, but in all these statistics one has to be very careful to compare like with like and to make allowances for various differences which a mere statement of statistics may conceal.
My hon. Friend said, for example, that the figures for crimes of violence in the Isle of Man are infinitely better than those for England and Wales. That may well be. I dare say that they are considerably better in North Dorset than they are for England and Wales. They are certainly better in the Darwen division of Lancashire than they are for the United Kingdom or for England and Wales as a whole. Therefore, a mere comparison of different areas is somewhat misleading.
Part of the explanation of this enormous increase lies in the natural increase in our population. The total number of males under the age of 17 is estimated to have been about 2½ million in 1948 and well over 3 million in 1960, a very large increase. Furthermore, it is, I think, generally accepted that there is a greater readiness to prosecute for violence which arises from disorderly conduct among young people. This is borne out by the fact that among offenders under the age of 17, the number of convictions for misdemeanours—on the whole, the less serious offences—has risen much faster than the number of convictions for felonies, which, as a proportion of the total number of convictions for offences of violence against the person, has fallen from 12 per cent. in 1948 to 6 per cent. in 1960. That is to say, the proportion of the more serious crimes of violence has fallen and the less serious ones have risen.
I also ask the House not to be misled by the term "offences of violence against the person". In comparing the trend of our criminal statistics from year to year, it is obviously convenient to group offences in certain broad cate-

gories, but, inevitably, each group of offences turns out to be much more heterogeneous than its name suggests. Offences of violence against the person include some, like the procuring of abortion or the concealment of birth, which in ordinary parlance are not crimes of violence at all.
The other offences which sound more violent, such as felonious or malicious wounding, do not all arise from assaults of the serious and brutal kind that my hon. Friend has in mind. Most offences of this kind committed by offenders under the age of 17 are the outcome of fights and brawls among adolescent boys such as have always been common in tough neighbourhoods. The proportion of offences that involve shooting or stabbing is very small.
My hon. Friend implied, if he did not say, that many juvenile offenders who are found guilty of offences of violence against the person are found to have long records of previous similar offences, but no convictions for any form of dishonesty. I am informed that about three-quarters of the offenders in question—that is to say, those who are found guilty of offences of violence against the person—have never been previously found guilty of an offence of any kind and that of the remaining one-quarter, those who have a record, almost all have previous convictions for offences of dishonesty.
It is certainly true that where a boy has been found guilty of an offence of violence against the person and has never previously been found guilty of any offence the court will usually deal with him by granting an absolute or conditional discharge, imposing a fine or making a probation order, but that is equally true where a first offender is found guilty of larceny or some other offence involving dishonesty. It is not merely that the courts wish to save a first offender from being contaminated by others more advanced in delinquency, though that consideration is, naturally, present to their minds. It is rather that where, as with a first offender from a a reasonably stable home, probation and other forms of non-institutional treatment stand a good chance of success the court simply does not feel justified in removing the boy from his home.
Among individual cases my hon. Friend quoted as an example that of a


boy aged 16 found guilty of manslaughter at the Old Bailey last year. Thanks to the courtesy of my hon. Friend in letting me know he was going to do this I have been able to obtain full details of it, and the information which I have obtained may serve to present it to him and the House in a rather different light.
The boy was a student at a technical college where he attended a class in bakery as part of his training as an apprentice. On the day of the offence he had received a good deal of baiting from the boy whom he killed, which constituted sufficent provocation for the offender's plea of not guilty to the original charge of murder to be accepted by the prosecution with the approval of the court. The offence was committed with a baker's knife which the boy had brought to use in the class. He had no previous finding of guilt for any kind of offence and his character was described as excellent.
In putting him on probation the judge is reported to have said:
I am now satisfied that there are quite exceptional circumstances in this case which enable me to take a course which at one time I thought it would be quite impossible to take.
While I would not seek in any way to minimise or condone the seriousness of such an offence I submit that such an unpremeditated act, the outcome of no small provocation, is not typical of the kind of offence my hon. Friend has stressed and the phrase "crimes of violence" suggests.
I have no reason to think that the courts are in general reluctant to commit offenders to some suitable form of institutional training. My hon. Friend instanced some statistics from detention centres from which he inferred that there were very few present in those detention centres who had committed crimes of violence. Out of 900 in one case he found only three who had committed crimes of violence. It is, however, not true that youths who commit crimes of violence are not being sent to detention centres. Of about 2,300 persons committed to detention centres in 1961 about 300 had been convicted of the offence of violence against the person.
That may seem a small percentage, but crimes of violence are a small per-

centage, and those 300, compared with 2,300, represent a considerably larger proportion than the proportion of offenders who commit crimes of violence against the person to offenders in general. Nor is it true that the higher courts do not in practice commit to detention centres. In 1960, the last full year for which figures are available, 356 persons were sent to detention centres by assizes or quarter sessions.
There is, of course, a grave shortage still of places in our approved schools and detention centres and the expansion has not kept pace with the number of offenders whom the courts think suitable for this sort of treatment. We are doing our best to catch up. An approved school programme of over £8 million was put in hand in 1960 and quite recently certificates for the approval of two new schools have been granted. As for detention centres, the Prison Commissioners now have seven for offenders aged between 17 and under 21, where the demand is greatest, to which they hope to add three more this summer; and at least two more centres are to be provided for the under-17s. It is my right hon. Friend's intention eventually to make a senior and a junior detention centre available to every court. The provision of additional senior centres has also enabled him to reduce the area served by each of the existing centres and so to increase the number of places available to any particular court.
I will not weary the House, because we have already overlapped our ration of time, on the question of non-institutional treatment, except to refer to my hon. Friend's moving, but, I thought, misguided, plea for the reintroduction of corporal punishment. All I can say to him on that point at this stage is that this subject has raged furiously inside the Houses of Parliament and in the country over the last two or three years. At the end of it all, I think it right to say that both Houses of Parliament and the conferences of all three of the major political parties have decisively come down in the end against such a recommendation. I do not think that, at any rate for some time, it is the sort of controversy that can conceivably be reopened by the appointment of yet another committee on the lines which my hon. Friend desires.
To sum up, I agree entirely with my hon. Friend's fears and with his approach to the seriousness of this problem. There has been a steep rise in the number of males under 17 found guilty of offences of violence against the person, but this does not necessarily indicate an equally steep rise in the number of such offences being committed by juveniles and still less of crimes of violence as the term is generally understood. My right hon. Friend is pressing on with the provision of better facilities which, in the light of the best advice available to him, he considers likely to be effective.
It is too early to talk of success or failure when so much remains to be done, not only in the treatment of juvenile offenders but in the prevention of juvenile crime, a task which my right hon. Friend has often said must engage the resources not only of the Government and of the courts, not only of the machinery and of officials, and not only of us in Parliament, but of all people in all the counties and all the towns and of the community as a whole. That is the answer to this crime wave and that is, I believe, the only way in which this problem can be solved.

HOMELESS AND EVICTED PERSONS

3.37 p.m.

Mr. A. Fenner Brockway: It is fitting that before the House rises for the Easter Recess it should discuss what many of us regard as the greatest social crime in our society, the blackest spot on our civilisation. I would say that the housing shortage, of which the evictions and the homeless are the symptoms, is the cause of the greatest unhappiness, of ill-health, of nervous strain, and of the breaking-up of families and is a large contribution to the problem of juvenile delinquency which we have just been discussing.
The overcrowded conditions of so many of our people bring frustration—particularly among the younger folk who are shot out into the streets if they are to have any opportunity of expression—to such an extent as to be a real factor in the increase of crime. In opening this debate I am thinking particularly of young married people with no oppor-

tunity to obtain a house and often having to live in crowded conditions with their "in-laws" with the strain upon their nervous systems which that causes.
I should like to see a census taken of the subjects which are raised by correspondence and in political "surgeries" with Members of Parliament. I am quite sure that if such an examination were made it would be found that Members of Parliament received more letters on the subject of housing than upon any other single subject. I have made a careful analysis of the individual cases which have been brought to me while I have been the Member for Eton and Slough during the last twelve years. Two thousand of those individual cases referred to housing. Two out of five of the persons who have approached me about their difficulties have been faced with this problem.
That is really quite extraordinary when one thinks of the broad issues that are raised in this way—old-age pensions, widows' pensions, injury and sickness benefits, national insurance, and the problems of military service. That has been my experience and, I am perfectly confident, the experience of many hon. Members.
Hon. Members representing London constituencies have already raised, with admirable vigour, the conditions of thousands of homeless who are now in the Metropolitan area. I am opening this debate because I want to emphasise that this is not only a problem in London. Many constituencies outside London have the same problem. I would not disagree that perhaps there are particular reasons in the case of Slough. It is an expanding industrial town in my constituency. It is comparatively prosperous and workers pour in, but when they pour in there is no accommodation for them.
I have forwarded to the Minister a document about 24 eviction cases within a period of one month, which were submitted to the tenancy committee of my borough council. I propose to cite only four of those cases because of limited time. There is the case of an aged widow and daughter. They lived in a three-bedroom house. They received notice to quit under the Rent Act. So obsessed with worry was the old lady that she had a nervous breakdown. She had the


alternative of being cared for by a daughter-in-law or entering a mental hospital. She has been placed under the care of the daughter-in-law. But her son and his wife now have the additional worry that, in housing them, they dare not allow their landlord to know because they have no permission to house their own mother. She lives in an attic. The toilet is on the ground floor. The council has no accommodation for her and is unable to act.
The second case is that of a man of 64 who is still working. His wife is 67, and has recently had a major operation and has had to give up work. They have a son of 36 who is mentally retarded and under the supervision of the county welfare department, which considers that he will never be able to work again. That man has had notice to quit under the Rent Act. The council can say only, "When accommodation is available, we will try to find some for you."
The third case concerns a man of 56 and his wife of 57, who have been tenants of their house for twenty-seven years. During that time they have probably paid in rent as much as the house cost to build originally. They are given notice to quit under the Rent Act and asked to buy "he house for £3,150. Their combined savings would not amount to the deposit on the house, nor could they afford the weekly instalments necessary for purchasing the house when the man is 56 years old.
My fourth instance concerns a service tenancy of a man with a wife, a daughter of twenty, and sons of 22 and 16. The elder son is in the Army. The man has been evicted because he has ceased to be employed by the farm in whose tied cottage he has lived. The man now sleeps in one house, the daughter has to sleep in another house and the wife and son are left to occupy a wooden hut 12 ft. by 9 ft.
So I could go on through the 24 cases occurring in my constituency within a month. They are stated in a formal and factual way. I am not ashamed to say that I found it difficult to go on reading them as I passed from one case to another and understood the human suffering which they represented. What happens to these families which are separated, the man dossing down with

friends in one house, the woman taking refuge with friends in another house and the children taken from their parents and placed in the residential centres of the Buckinghamshire County Council? This is an intolerable cruelty which our Parliament, our Government and our public opinion ought no longer to accept.
I have had correspondence with the Minister of Housing and Local Government about how far the Rent Act is responsible for these cases. I care very little what is the single cause of these conditions—it is the conditions themselves that I want to end—but the Rent Act has been a major factor because it has destroyed the security of tenure and increased rents and the cost of housing so that tenants cannot meet the demands of their landlords which lead to their eviction.
Even the service tenancies are a reflection of the Rent Act. I am old enough to remember the historic campaign in our Labour movement against the tied cottages on farms. Service tenancies have been extended far beyond that today. To secure their managers, multiple firms opening shops in expanding towns must provide them with accommodation. They then become service tenants, and they or any other employees of the firm who lose their jobs are immediately given notice to quit. That necessity to provide accommodation by private companies—a bribe for the job—is largely the result of the Rent Act and the fact that it has made security of tenure ineffective and has so sent up rents and the price of houses that employees seeking these jobs are prepared to take service tenancies.
I admit that the evicted and homeless are only a symptom of the housing shortage, but I charge the Government with having made far more difficult the obligation of local councils to provide the housing which the people in their areas need. They have made it more difficult by their financial restrictions, the high rates of interest for housing loans and by the precipitous increases in the cost of land in recent years.
The Government may say that house building has increased. It has, but private building has not satisfied the needs of those whose needs are the greatest. I can give an instance of this in Slough. We have private houses going up and


the largest private building company in this area states that 90 per cent. of the privately sold houses are being occupied by people who have neither lived nor worked in Slough. The houses were advertised for sale in the national Press and the people living in them commute to and from London. They also come from the North because they want to live in the South and the wretched overcrowded people of Slough have not been relieved by the private houses that have been built, many of which, anyway, they could never afford to buy.
This leads me to an extremely important issue. The housing shortage is dangerously increasing the racial feeling in this country. My constituency of Slough contains a number of West Indians, Indians and Pakistani workers who are employed in the expanding industries. There is nowhere for them to live, so what is the result? Often a Pakistani will buy a house at an exorbitant cost on a short lease and then let it to coloured people at appalling rents. Overcrowding inevitably results and, arising from those conditions, disquiet, ill feeling and racial prejudice develops.
This is one of the most deplorable developments taking place in our community and the Ministry of Housing bears a heavy responsibility for it by its failure to deal with the problem. To solve this problem is the greatest task of any Government. All our progress, our affluent society, television, motor cars, the achievements of science, the conquest of space and the millions of pounds expended on nuclear destruction have failed to assure the right of our people to a home. This right is a priority, no less than employment, health, education and security for old age. The provision of a house for every family and security within it should be regarded as a social service incumbent upon the community. There is a deep gulf, a deep gap, in our Welfare State until that need is met.
I plead, without much hope, to the Government, but I hope that before long we will have a Government which will fulfil this need.

3.55 p.m.

Sir Leslie Plummer: This week I received a letter from one of my constituents who said:

I am writing to you in the hope that you can do something to help me. I have been on the housing list for some years now and I am so badly in need of a home for my wife and daughter that I would take any kind of flat and do any building or decorating that would be needed. I have to be out of here soon before the end of the year. I do not want to be homeless.
I read that because it is typical of the letters which I receive. My hon. Friend the Member for Eton and Slough (Mr. Brockway) said that two out of every five letters which he received dealt with housing. I find that nearly four out of every five letters which I receive deal with housing.
Tonight at six o'clock I will be in my constituency holding my "surgery" which will go on for two and a half hours. During that time there will be a constant stream of young and old and middle-aged people coming to see me, as a last resort, and saying, "Please can you help us to get a house; please can you find somewhere where we can live; please will you do something to prevent us from being evicted?" This is a human problem which becomes an absolute nightmare for a London Member.
I do not find that my life is happy because I live in a comfortable house warm and in no danger of being evicted, when I know that over hundreds of my constituents there always hangs the fear either that they will not be able to find a place to live, or that they will be turned out of the place in which they are now living. All we get from the Government is complacency. Listening to Government spokesmen talking about housing one would not believe that there were Deptford citizens facing the possibility of being turned out into the streets.
I read this morning that one of the reasons for some of the Liberal successes is that young married couples in fairly high income groups are disgusted with the Government's housing policy. But it is the people in the low income groups who are disgusted with the Government's housing policy. Young people come to me and say that they want to get married—and in some cases it is absolutely essential that they get married—and they have nowhere to live. I tell them to go to the L.C.C.'s surveyors who are extremely helpful and who will advance them a considerable mortgage on their own valuation of what they want to


buy. They ask, "Where will you buy a property in Deptford and how much will we have to put down?" When I say that they will have to put down £200 or £300 they say, "Chum, we have been wasting your time. We do not have £200 or £300." It is a property-less democracy which exists in our Metropolitan boroughs, and particularly in mine.
Over and over again I find young couples whose marriages are busting up. Nothing will break up a marriage more quickly than the sharing of a cooker with another family, and that is what so many young couples are having to do. They move in with "Mum" and rows start and they get nervous attacks and so it goes on piling up, misery upon misery upon misery, with broken marriages, broken homes and all the ghastly consequences.
The Government do not seem to understand this. They point to the increased figures of houses built for sale. I should like the Parliamentary Secretary to break his conventions and read the current issue of the very important magazine, Universities and Left Review, which contains one of the best analyses of the housing situation which I have ever seen, analysing the growth of houses for sale in this country. Where are they? They are in Henley, in Orpington, and in places where land is available and where people have the necessary incomes. It is not possible to go to Islington, to Willesden or to Deptford and find a site on which to build a house. It just is not on.
Between the wars Dr. McGonnigle was the Medical Office of Health at Stockton. He wrote a book "The Stockton Experiment", and I wish that the Parliamentary Secretary would read it, because in some parts of the country we are approaching the conditions set out by Dr. McGonnigle. He pointed out that the local authority in Stockton had built a new model housing estate, influenced no doubt by the benign interest of the Prime Minister who was then the Member for that constituency. It was discovered that the people living on this model housing estate were suffering a higher infantile and maternal mortality rate than the people in the slum areas from which they had come. Was this due to the drains? Was it perhaps

due to the soil? Was there some constitutional reason for it? Not at all. The reason was that rents were too high, and that people were having to pay out so much for rents that they were unable to eat adequately. They were suffering from malnutrition because of the high rents.
I assure the Parliamentary Secretary that this state of affairs is being repeated in some parts of the country today. People earning £10 to £12 a week are having to pay £6 to £7 a week for two furnished rooms. They have to go without the necessities of life. They are not able to lead decent lives, and to tell these people that the housing problem has been solved, or that we are on the verge of solving it, is absolute nonsense. I wish that the Minister would pay attention to the problems that exist in dormitory suburbs such as the one that I have the honour to represent, because I am sure that if he saw what was happening he would alter his views considerably.
My hon. Friend the Member for Eton and Slough dealt with the racial problem. Many of us have experience of it. I experience a good deal of it in my constituency because we have an untold number of West Indians who are buying houses in the area for fantastic prices and then letting rooms at equally fantastic prices. I should like to see price control put back on some of these houses. These fellows go to usurers and borrow money at 10, 12 or 15 per cent. to buy ramshackle and rotten property which would have been pulled down by the council had it been possible to provide alterative accommodation at rents which people could afford to pay.
The position is so bad that as one West Indian gets out of bed and goes to work another comes off the night shift and occupies the bed that has just been vacated. The beds are never cold. This is a most insanitary state of affairs. I am, however, prepared to put up with a certain amount of insanitation, but I am not prepared to put up with the racial feeling and real bitterness which is being engendered by the housing shortage in my constituency as a result of the Government's fiscal policy and high interest rates which make it extremely difficult for the council to build houses to let at rents which people can afford. The introduction of the Rent


Act has brought untold misery to the ordinary people of this country, and almost countless wealth to the landowners who have the support of the Tory Party.
During the next few weeks the Government will be on trial not only in the Parliamentary constituencies but in the municipal elections. This will be one of the issues, and I know what will happen. The Government will get one of the biggest pastings that they have ever had, but even this will not make any difference to them. They will go on with their callous neglect of the housing needs of the poorer sections of the community in the interests of the property-owning class.

4.5 p.m.

Mr. G. W. Reynolds: I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Eton and Slough (Mr. Brockway) on raising this subject during this series of Adjournment debates. He said that in his correspondence, and in his visits to constituents, at least two out of every five cases he had to deal with concerned housing. My experience is much closer to that of my hon. Friend the Member for Deptford (Sir L. Plummer). At least four out of every five visits that I am paid by my constituents in my "surgeries" on Monday nights are connected with housing, and the "me proportion applies in the case of my correspondence.
Having spent ten years on the housing committee of a local authority—Acton—on the west side of London before entering the House, I thought that I knew something about housing problems. The housing situation in Acton is bad enough, but I realised, as soon as I moved and became the Parliamentary representative for North Islington, that what I had thought to be a bad situation in Acton was nothing like so terrible as it is in north London, and especially in Islington. The population of that borough has fallen by 60,000 in the last sixty years, but the housing situation there today is unbelievable. What it must have been like at the beginning of the century I dare not think. At that stage it must have been very much worse than it is now, but even today, in the middle of the 20th century, I say without hesitation that the housing conditions of a large proportion—probably the

majority—of my constituents, are an absolute disgrace to the United Kingdom.
The problem falls into many different sections. There is the terrible problem of gross overcrowding, with families forced to live in one or two rooms, even though there may be three, four or five children. In many oases these people have been on the council's housing list and on the London County Council's housing list for 10, 12 or even 13 years, because the London County Council has to carry out other important work such as school building, and a whole range of other projects. Despite the terrible circumstances in which people to whom I have referred are living they are not so bad as the conditions of other people, to whom the London County Council must give priority. The Borough of Islington was forced to close its housing list five years ago, because it has absolutely no land on which to build. In effect, it can deal only with relets as existing property becomes vacant, and with a very small number of units of accommodation on sites in the area.
A new factor has arisen in the problem of overcrowding in the last twelve months, owing to the provisions of the Rent Act, 1957. As a landlord obtains possession of part of a house, that part becomes decontrolled, and he can let it at whatever rent he can get. What actually happens is that a landlord obtains possession of one floor, which he lets on a monthly tenancy. It may be merely two rooms and a little box-room, called a kitchen, plus a toilet which has to be shared with two or three other families. The landlord may let that floor to a husband with a wife and children at £3 or more—usually more—per week. He then sits back and waits until another floor becomes vacant, or perhaps the remainder of the house. Under the Rent Act he is then permitted to give notice to the decontrolled tenants, and he does so with the sole intention of selling the whole house with vacant possession.
When the Rent Act was passed we were assured that it would make more property available for letting. That has not happened in my constituency. Landlords are still selling their property as fast as they can obtain vacant possession of a large enough proportion of it to be assured of a good capital profit at the


present high prices. Decontrolled property is beginning to build up in my constituency. People who, twelve months or two years ago, thought themselves fortunate to be able to get two or three unfurnished rooms at £4 or £5 a week are now receiving notice to quit, so that their landlords can sell the property with vacant possession. All that they can do is to take the matter to court, secure in the knowledge that the judge may be able to give them a few months' grace, to try to find somewhere else, before they have to double up with a relative or with friends or go into accommodation provided by the L.C.C. for homeless persons.
As for furnished property, I am amazed at some of the fantastic rents families in my constituency pay. Ordinary families, with the husbands earning £13, £14 or £15 a week, with a wife and two or three children, are somehow or another finding £6 or £7 a week for two furnished rooms. Even then they are given notice because the landlord finds that by letting the two rooms separately to two families instead of to one family he can make another £1 a week out of them. These people come and see me. They have already seen the advice bureau, the local authority and the poor man's lawyer and they are at their wits' end to know what to do.
There is also the problem of basements which ought to be closed and which are unfit for human habitation. Local authorities would like to put closing orders on these basements, but because they have no alternative accommodation to offer the people who would be dispossessed if they did so, these basements are still being used years after they ought to have been closed. The medical officer of health and everyone else considers these basements quite unfit for human habitation, but the local authorities can deal with only a limited number of them every year. Because there is no legal obligation on the councils to rehouse people living in basements this limits the opportunity.
Then there is the problem of immigration. When I talk of immigration in this context I mean anyone who comes into my constituency from anywhere else in the world. That is the immigration position so far as I am concerned.

People are moving into my constituency from the West Indies, Hackney, St. Pancras, Birmingham, Scotland, Ireland and everywhere else. This pushes up the price of the available accommodation in the area. These people are attracted by the large number of jobs available in the London area. I do not think that the Commonwealth Immigrants Bill will make the least difference to the problem because it is based on immigrants from the Commonwealth having jobs to come to, and there will always be jobs for them in London. Therefore, the Bill will not slow down the number of people coming into my constituency from the West Indies or anywhere else.
I do not think that there is any colour prejudice as such in my constituency, but I must utter the warning that if the number of people coming in from overseas keeps increasing and if these people continue taking the scarce housing accommodation when the people born there are living in overcrowded conditions, a great deal of resentment will be built up which, in due course, will develop into a colour prejudice. It will then take many years to eradicate that prejudice from London or from anywhere else.
It is easy enough for most people to purchase a television set or a secondhand car on hire purchase, but it is still almost impossible for the vast number of my constituents to purchase a house or flat, even if it is available at a reasonable price, because while they are paying the present inflated rents they cannot save the £300, £400, £500 or £600 required as a deposit. The main thing that must be done, although I will not labour it at the moment because one does not expect the Parliamentary Secretary to deal with that matter today, is to get cheaper rates of interest. However, there are other things at which I hope the Parliamentary Secretary will be able to look.
We are running into a position where the new town programme is gradually coming to an end. I am reluctantly convinced that my own constituency can solve its housing problem only if several thousands are moved out of the area in order to make better housing accommodation available for those who remain. This can be done only by an


expansion of the new towns scheme and by greater action on the part of the Government in securing the expansion of other towns outside the Greater London area. As far as I can see, this is the only way in which the housing problem in my constituency can be solved, and I earnestly hope that we shall see action taken in this direction by the Minister.
I would commend to the House the suggestion of the Bow Group to have new towns about a hundred miles from London. That is primarily concerned with trying to overcome the overcrowding in the London area. I would also ask the Parliamentary Secretary to look at the question of the assistance which can be given to people by local authorities to purchase accommodation. The Labour Party suggested some five years ago that local authorities should give 100 per cent. mortages, and about twelve months later the Government introduced legislation to enable that to be done. But at the moment local authorities have considerable difficulty in raising capital for their own needs.
We are told that it is Government policy to encourage owner-occupation. The facilities provided by the Public Works Loan Board are not to be available to local authorities for normal capital requirements, and I suggest to the Minister that if the Government wish to see an expansion of owner-occupation the tap of the Public Works Loan Board should be at the disposal of local authorities who wish to give mortgages of up to 90 per cent. under the Small Dwellings Acquisition Act and other legislation. If the financial problems of the local authorities in carrying out this work could be eased we might have a much more generous approach from local authorities to the provision of assistance to people who wish to purchase their own housing accommodation.
I hope that the Minister will take further action and will try to draw the attention of local authorities to something which many local authorities seem to have forgotten, and that is that they have the power to take cases before rent tribunals where they consider that excessive rents are being charged for furnished accommodation. In many cases it is almost impossible for the tenant concerned to go to a rent tribunal, because

he knows that as soon as he does so, or perhaps a month or two later, he will be evicted from the accommodation. There is always someone else only too pleased to pay rent at a similar level in order to secure the accommodation. I should like the Government to inform local authorities that they expect them to use the powers which they possess to bring these cases before rent tribunals so that the onus for doing so does not rest on the tenant and he cannot be affected.
I should like to say a great deal more on this subject, but I know that other hon. Members wish to speak. In my constituency the housing problem is the greatest problem confronting the local authority. In my view nationally it is greater than most problems affecting the country. To a greater extent efforts being made and money being spent on the provision of new schools and new social services of one kind or another will be wasted unless we can make provision for the better accommodation of the people.

4.17 p.m.

Mr. Laurence Pavitt: I am grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Islington, North (Mr. Reynolds) for delivering his speech so quickly, because it has left a little time in which I am able to speak. What has been said by my hon. Friend and by my hon. Friend the Member for Dept-ford (Sir L. Plummer) and by my hon. Friend the Member for Eton and Slough (Mr. Brockway)—to whom we are all grateful for raising this matter—will find an echo in the heart of every hon. Member Who represents a constituency like mine in Middlesex, or, indeed, any hon. Member who has a similar problem in his constituency. Today we are speaking not only for ourselves, but for those hon. Members who sit opposite, and who are not present today, but who have similar problems in their constituencies.
I am extremely sorry that the Minister of Housing and Local Government is not present. I have been hammering at the right hon. Gentleman ever since he took office, trying to convey to him the urgency of some of these problems. I have found myself, as it were, up against a solid brick wall. The previous Minister has been referred to as one of the toughest Ministers in the Government.


Yet my constant stream of letters received replies which, although they never gave much help, at least revealed an understanding of the situation. In spite of the fact that the same problems seem to be increasing week after week the replies I get from the present Minister show no understanding at all. I should like to confirm the figures mentioned by previous speakers of constituencies approached as being four out of five rather than two out of five.
When I put these questions to the Minister the answers which I get become more and more "dusty". If this debate does nothing else I hope that it will enable the Minister to show some understanding of the terriffic pressure under which hon. Members labour. In my own constituency there are eight families under notice at this moment and the local authority has not yet been able to provide other accommodation for them. Until 4th April the number of evictions under the Rent Act and rehoused by the Willesden Borough Council amounted to 105. The last figure available—it is six months old now—is that £156,000 has been spent by my Council in rehousing these families, mostly in old properties that have had to be bought to give a roof over their heads.
It is absolutely unfair to the rest of the community that the provisions of the Rent Act should operate in this way. It means that the local authority has an undue burden to bear. It means that ratepayers have to foot the Bill and it means that many members of the community live with the threat of eviction hanging over their heads and others in decontrolled houses never knowing when the axe of eviction will fall.
One aspect of unfairness to which I draw the attention of the Minister is the fact that, because a house is decontrolled the owner can immediately give notice of eviction and that ranks as vacant possession, but the local authority, when it seeks to buy that house, must pay the price fixed by the district valuer. This is the vacant possesion price. Because a family is already in the house, the local authority receives the house with the family and it adds nothing to its available property. It pays vacant possession price for an occupied house.
I wish to bring two cases to the attention of the Minister. As so many other hon. Members have done, I have previously raised cases of broken families. Now I wish to raise two cases affecting old people. I have a letter from Miss Olive Springall, which says:
I am writing to ask you if you would help me as my landlord is taking me to court on 30th of the month. Could you help me?… He wants to get us out. My sister and me have been in this house for 40 years. Will you come and see me?
I went to see her and found that she was over 70 and living with her sister of about the same age who was an assistant in the meals service. They are facing this problem over Easter, with nowhere to go, and the council cannot help them. It is a sad case for which the council has no remedy.
Another typical case is that of a man who has pride and will never ask for help from anyone. Never before has he been to the Citizens Advice Bureau or any organisations like that. George Wyers, 72, lost his right arm in the First World War. He is proud to have brought up a family and in spite of the fact that he has no right arm has never been a burden on the community. He reached the stage in 1957 when living with his wife who is aged 70 and the family having now left home his house became decontrolled.
Under the Landlord and Tenant (Temporary Provisions) Act he found another place with a three year lease, but the lease expired and he has been given notice to quit. He came to see me one Friday night, in tears, and asked what he could do. He went before the court and got a three months stay and then a two month stay. Why should that man whose family has now grown up and with families of their own, suddenly at 72 years of age become a burden on the community and have to come cap in hand to his Member of Parliament to ask for help?
As my hon. Friend the Member for Eton and Slough said, this kind of case can be multiplied time and again. This section of the community comprises people who have been hit most by the Rent Act. It is a form of legalised blackmail. First, they are given a three years' lease, which takes them to the extent they can possibly afford. They say that somehow they will manage, but


when that lease expires they are offered a further one year's lease and the rent is raised still further. As under any form of blackmail they are living under a constant threat. Because of shortage of accommodation and the need for accommodation they have to pay what the landlord demands knowing that each year the ante will be raised.
Then there is the human problem, which is not one of overcrowding, where there are two rooms lived in by a husband and wife with only two children, a boy of 13 and a girl of 15. The "kitchen" is a stove on the landing and they have to use a bathroom downstairs. The man says that his married life is being broken up because nothing can be done about the problem of children of opposite sex in a small family living in two rooms. I ask the Minister to do something in those cases.
In my area there are 2,900 people on the housing list, 550 slums to be cleared, 397 war-time "prefabs" to be cleared and 191 statutorily overcrowded people seeking fresh accommodation. In those circumstances we are more than grateful that we are able, even during these last minutes before adjourning for Easter, to raise this matter with the Minister with a view to seeing whether something might be done about this problem.
The urgent need is to restore security. A family must be able to live under its own roof and get its roots down. It is also extremely necessary that councils should again be provided with cash in order to make the 95 per cent. or 100 per cent. mortgage available again; in my area we have had to stop offering such mortgages ever since we had a 7 per cent. Bank Rate, because the Council has been unable to raise the necessary funds. Above all, we want the Minister to take heed of the deep feeling there is on this side of the House that family life is far more important than landlords' profit.

4.25 p.m.

Mr. Michael Cliffe: What my hon. Friends have so far said could be repeated by every London Member in the House, because I cannot imagine that conditions in some parts of London can be very different from those in others. Even in such places

as Maida Vale, Westminster and Holborn it is possible, without looking very far, to find people who are affected in the manner that has been described, and my constituency is in very much the same position as most of the Metropolitan areas. What has been said today, has been said before, and we shall probably have to say it again and again.
It is often said that we seek some political propaganda advantage by making these statements, but the Government themselves must know by now that they are true. They must have seen some of the things that have taken place in London. They must know of the torchlight parade, in which some hundreds of homeless people took part on what was probably one of the coldest nights of the year. There was nothing political in that; those people were in desperate need of accommodation. Despite all the efforts of the London County Council, there are still homeless families in the Metropolis.
It has been said that hostility is growing against the coloured people because of the accommodation they occupy in areas of housing shortage, but I can truly say that although, to some extent, people are critical when they see the coloured immigrants there, a measure of common sense prevails.
People feel particularly badly when they see families whom they have known, families that have lived in the same borough, and in the same accommodation, for thirty, forty or even fifty years, suddenly made homeless because of the rateable value of the property. One lady, who had worked at the Mount Pleasant Post Office, who had been decorated, and who had said that no one would drive her out of London during the bombing, was, in fact, driven out as a result of the Government's policy. That is one of the tragic cases.
It is damnable that any Government, knowing that people are desperately in need of homes, should so legislate as to give the landlords the right, merely on the basis of rateable value, to evict their tenants and then advertise the property as being for sale with vacant possession. That, to me, is almost criminal. The local authorities, and particularly the London County Council, were blamed for not acting more quickly on behalf


of some of the homeless in the recent debate, and it was the Minister of Housing and Local Government himself who said that the L.C.C. could rehouse many of these families, because it had the powers to do so. What nonsense. When people have been for ten or twelve years on a housing list, thinking that they would be rehoused, because they had been left homeless as a result of legislation passed by this Government, which gave the landlords the right to turn them out, can we imagine what a local authority could do when faced with a situation like that? The L.C.C, I know, was doing every thing it possibly could do with its limited resources.
One of the things that is very much resented is that it is necessary sometimes to take the children away from the parents and put them in lodgings in other places. The parents found that while they were having to provide money for the care of the children by the L.C.C, they were also having to pay £3, £4 or even £5 for furnished rooms for themselves, and, therefore, could not save any money for a house and so bring themselves together again as a family.
To relieve some of the serious pressure that exists at present, it is absolutely necessary, from a purely humanitarian point of view, to restore security of tenure, and not operate on the principle of the rateable value. Secondly, I think that powers must be given immediately—and I hope that the Government will seriously consider this—to enable local authorities to acquire certain properties. There are houses in central London in which there are thousands of people who have been on the waiting lists for years, where there is no land for development, and where the rate of rehousing is about ten families a year, and yet, in some areas, for instance, City Road and other places, there are houses, with eight, nine and even ten rooms, which are to let with vacant possession. It is high time that powers of requisitioning were given to local authorities to deal with this kind of situation. They should be able to make financial arrangements to acquire some of these properties, and thus relieve some of the existing pressure.

4.33 p.m.

Mr. Michael Stewart: I spoke recently to a young married man who is in regular employment and earning a good wage. He was married after the Rent Act was passed, and so, when he got his accommodation, it was a decontrolled tenancy from the start. He was a good tenant; it was not a low rent, but was within his means. He was saving in the hope of one day becoming the owner of a house. Then, his first child was born, and he was immediately told, "Out you go. We do not want any children here."
This man had to live in furnished rooms, at the kind of rent which has been described by some of my hon. Friends, and this has eaten up his savings. He is still in good, regular work, and if he could get over the initial problem of buying a house, he would be able to complete the mortgage payments. A year or two ago, he had the money which he would have had to put down as a deposit, but now that has gone into the pockets of the landlord of the furnished rooms, who was empowered to take it from him by the Rent Act which the present Government passed.
This man was placed in that position because he was turned out of his home for having the impudence to have a child, and the fact that he could be so put out is solely due to the operation of the Rent Act. Now, he is on the edge of homelessness all the time, and may well end up in a hostel.
I have the case of another young man who is paying rent for rooms on the ground floor of a house at about five times the gross value of the premises. Up above are an elderly couple who have been there for years and whose rent is still controlled, but, of course, at the maximum which the Rent Act allows. He has a year's agreement, about half of which is gone.
The house is in a shocking state, but, very prudently, he has never been to the sanitary inspector himself because he hoped that he would get his agreement renewed when the time ran out. He has spent a great deal of time, trouble and money on keeping the house in proper condition. Now he is asked to buy the house for three times what it could conceivably be worth in any valuation. When he protested at the


price, he was told, "Look at the old couple upstairs. They will not last another five years and when they are dead you will be able to rent their rooms for £4 10s. a week." That young man said to me, "How could I do a thing like that? I know what it feels like paying £3 10s. for what I have. How could I treat someone else in like manner?" He will be put out.
That is the jungle in which people are living in in a great many areas today. My hon. Friend the Member for Eton and Slough (Mr. Brockway), to whom we are greatly indebted for this debate, quoted a number of different causes which can put people in the position where they are looking for accommodation.

Mr. Harold Davies: It is happening all over the country.

Mr. Stewart: My hon. Friend the Member for Eton and Slough stressed that this was not only a London problem. But the Minister, with that flippant pedantry which characterises his handling of the problem, is careful to say, "These cases did not arise because of the Rent Act, but because of another reason." Will the Government get it into their heads that, while it is always liable to happen anywhere that certain numbers of people will have to leave their homes—that is a chance of life which cannot always be avoided—the question is: why is it that the people to whom that happens cannot find accommodation at rents which they could reasonably be expected to pay? Even if they can find it they have no security of tenure.
The reason, as we all very well know, is the Rent Act, which has created the position of the two young men which I have just described. They stand on the edge of being pushed into a hostel in a few months' time. It is the position of thousands of people. That is the nature of the problem we are discussing. There are things that local authorities can do to deal with it. If I mention the L.C.C. now, it is not because I am under any illusions that this is merely a London problem but because the L.C.C. has had it on the biggest scale and has shown what a local authority can do.
From the benches opposite has often come the suggestion—although those

benches are significantly empty now—that the L.C.C. has not tackled this matter in good time. Let us look at the facts. The L.C.C. knew very well that, while this problem had been serious for some years, there was one thing which would create a crisis and that was the expiry in 1961 of the Landlord and Tenant (Furniture and Fittings) Act. 1959.
The Government were warned that that would happen from these benches. They were urged to extend the Act and the limited measure of security which it gave to some tenants. They refused to do so and, therefore, a crisis of home-lessness burst on us in the autumn of 1961.
Fortunately, the L.C.C. was ready, otherwise we should have had people homeless in the most literal sense of walking the street with no roof to put themselves under at night. It is worth while taking note of some of the measures adopted by the L.C.C. There was the extension of hostel accommodation, like that at Morning Lane, which was in time for the crisis. There has been modernisation of old buildings such as those in the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for Bermondsey (Mr. Mellish).
There is a constant process of the encouraging of tenants living in premises too large for them to make transfers accounting for about 8,000 families a year. There is the diligent purchase wherever possible of empty properties. All this has been going on. No doubt, any local authority, according to the size of its resources, can do this sort of thing, though it is an expensive business and by no means easy to do.
What local authorities, or some of them, are faced with today is this. In the situation which the Government have allowed to grow up they are being asked to turn this service of providing for the families, which ought really to be an emergency welfare service for the homeless, into a sort of additional housing service. Frankly, they cannot do that with fairness to the people who are already on their housing lists and who have been waiting for some considerable time.
What sort of things might the Government do in this matter? We cannot


advocate legislation in a debate on the Adjournment, though if the Government have not grasped by now what we think they ought to do with the Rent Act I do not know whether they ever will grasp it. Here, at any rate, are certain administrative measures. One remedy that local authorities can apply if a landlord is unreasonably threatening eviction and demanding an unreasonable rent is that of purchasing the property and, if necessary, applying for a compulsory purchase order. The Minister can begin to look at this rather differently.
A few months ago I was drawing the right hon. Gentleman's attention to one case where he had refused a compulsory purchase order, although the landlord was asking for a rent four-and-a-half times the gross value, which, the Minister said, he did not think was exorbitant. The Government ought to be urging local authorities to use their compulsory purchase powers and to see that tenants are as fully informed as possible of what their legal rights in this housing jungle are. When I asked the Minister to circularise local authorities, urging them to inform tenants of their rights under the Housing Act, 1961, he would not do it. He thought that possibly the citizens' advice bureaux might help. We want a much more positive attitude to this sort of thing from the Minister.
The Minister can make it a bit easier for local authorities to give help to intending house purchasers, as my hon. Friend the Member for Islington, North (Mr. Reynolds) suggested. That means making it possible for local authorities to borrow money at lower rates of interest than they can at present. I beg the Joint Parliamentary Secretary not to produce the usual answer to that suggestion. We know that one by heart. The Government will say, "We will not do that because it would mean sheltering housing from the economic strains of the country." I see from his expression that the Parliamentary Secretary remembers it. He ought to. He has repeated it often enough.
What does it mean? When the Government say that we cannot have a specially favourable rate of interest to help solve the housing problem, what

they are saying is that providing people like those we have been talking about this afternoon—many of them solid, respectable citizens and good tenants—with a home is no more important than any kind of building in the country—any office or any petrol station—no more important than any venture in the economic field, however trivial and luxurious. That is what the Government's doctrine on interest rates means—that housing is no more important than any other of these things.
The other thing that the Government must do is to step up the rate of council house building. When, two or more years ago, I first began to speak from this Box on housing matters I drew the attention of the then Minister to the alarming decline in council house building. The Minister said, "Oh, but the hon. Member will notice that it has gone up in the last quarter." It had—infinitesimally. We are now entitled to ask what is the Government's policy on council house building, which was down 10 per cent. in 1961 compared with 1960. Do the Government think that that is moving in the right direction? I beg them not to tell us that this problem could be solved if we had a differential rents schemes.
Some of the stories of eviction come from Harrow, a solid Conservative borough. This is the policy that hon. Members opposite would like. If the Conservative Party thinks that such a policy has solved the problem, why are there no Conservative Members here today to tell us how it has worked in Conservative-dominated localities? We all know that in Greater London, and all over the country, that sort of thing is a triviality. We must have a greater rate of council house building.
Lastly, we must plan the location of industry and ensure that the Metropolis and certain other centres in the country cease to be magnets, making the housing problem insoluble. Again, that is something which we have told the Government time and again. The Joint Parliamentary Secretary's hon. Friends are not here and a representative from the Liberal Party is not here, but a number of my hon. Friends are here and the hon. Gentleman is here, not as a volunteer, but as a conscript. Let us hear what he has to say about this matter.

4.47 p.m.

The Joint Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Housing and Local Government (Mr. Geoffrey Rippon): I assure the House that I am a willing conscript on this occasion. I assure the House too that my right hon. Friend well understands the difficulties which face many hon. Members, particularly in the London area, in dealing with the problems which their constituents bring to them. No one can doubt that home-lessness, whether it arises from eviction or from any other cause, is a social problem of the greatest importance which must be tackled with sympathy and vigour by the responsible authorities.
I agree with the hon. Member for Fulham (Mr. M. Stewart) about the ways in which housing and welfare authorities could and should be dealing with these matters. But I do not think it helps to refuse to look at the problem objectively. It is no good just reiterating the old political arguments about the Rent Act, 1957. The hon. Member for Fulham repeats them every time he speaks. All problems, whether they concern furnished accommodation, or accommodation which has nothing to do with the Rent Act, are all, according to the hon. Member, due to the Rent Act. If I may turn round the observation which the hon. Gentleman made about my right hon. Friend, I am afraid that sometimes the hon. Gentleman expresses flippant thoughts in a pedantic way.
I think that the hon. Member for Eton and Slough (Mr. Brockway) looked at the matter in the right way when he said that we may argue about the reasons for evictions, but what we must really face is the problem. That is what we should be concerned with this afternoon. We have analysed very carefully the 24 cases to which the hon. Gentleman directed my right hon. Friend's attention. Four of them concerned service tenancies, which have always been outside the Rent Act. The hon. Member for Islington, North (Mr. Reynolds) referred to tied cottages, which have existed for a very long time. They are very necessary in many cases. Even before the Rent Act, 1957, it was not easy for people to take jobs and rent houses in London. If the Rent

Act has not made the position much easier, it certainly has not made it worse. Hon. Members cannot have it both ways.
In two of the other cases to which the hon. Member for Eton and Slough referred, the tenants had moved in since the 1957 Act. In another case, the tenant, apparently, had had a row with his father-in-law. One family, which admittedly was badly housed, was not in danger of eviction. Three people had made other arrangements, and in another case there was a dispute over the payment of rent.
The fact that the London County Council has thought it necessary to initiate an inquiry into the causes of homelessness shows that it is, perhaps, not wise to be too dogmatic about the causes of this problem.
It is right that the whole problem of homelessness should be seen in perspective against the considerable housing progress that has been made in recent years, both by public authorities and by private enterprise. In the London area since the war, 427,000 new units of accommodation have been provided, 299,000 by the local authorities and 128,000 by private enterprise.
As, however, the hon. Member for Islington, North said, we cannot look merely at the provision of housing accommodation in the London area. Because London is such a magnet and people are getting married younger and are looking for separate accommodation at a much earlier age and we have rising standards in a more prosperous society, we know that we cannot meet the housing problem of all the people of London within the county or Greater London area. Therefore, it is important that we go ahead with new and expanded towns.
In the new towns, 68,000 new houses have been completed, most of them for Londoners. Under town development, at the end of 1961 there were 10,200 houses completed, 3,000 under construction and another 48,000 in schemes agreed. It is fair to say that considerable progress is still being made with town development. The London County Council deserves congratulations for the way it has dealt with this matter.
In Slough, in the constituency of the hon. Member who initiated this debate,


the population has increased by about 14,000 in the last ten years. The hon. Member recognises that this has created a special problem. There has been growth in the trading estate and Slough is particularly well situated for commuting to London. Therefore, in spite of the fact that a great deal has been achieved in the building of new housing in Slough—3,720 local authority houses and 2,740 private enterprise houses—there still remains this continuing heavy pressure, Although the council now has 6,000 houses, it is still unable to cope quickly with all the problems that come before it. What the hon. Member for Eton and Slough said about racial feeling being increased by the shortage of houses shows, as the hon. Member for Islington, North said, how immigration from any quarter adds to these difficulties.
Slough provides a fair example of the nature of the problem that we have to face. As far as we can ascertain, 127 cases of threatened eviction have come before the courts since 1st January, 1961. Not all of these threatened evictions actually materialised. As far as the council is aware, 40 orders for possession were obtained during that period, not by any means all of them due to the Rent Act. The council itself has obtained eviction orders from time to time. No doubt it would be severely abused for this by the hon. Member for Fulham. The council itself has rehoused 31 families against whom court orders were obtained. It has made no representations to us about difficulties arising from the rehousing of evicted families.
Where a housing authority cannot immediately help, it is, as the hon. Member for Fulham pointed out, the responsibility of the welfare authority to provide temporary accommodation. At the end of 1961, Bucks County Council as welfare authority for the county was providing such accommodation for 33 persons, including 19 children. At the end of March, 1962, the number was down to 21, including 13 children, and including only two families who had been evicted. Both of these evictions were due to loss of service tenancies. These figures of persons provided with temporary accommodation relate not only to Slough, but to the whole

county. No one would deny that in London the problem is more difficult.
Although the number of families in temporary accommodation under the auspices of the London County Council as both welfare and housing authority has risen, many of these stay only a relatively short time. Some find their own accommodation, some return to their own homes and some are rehoused by the council itself. A similar problem, although smaller in extent, exists in Middlesex, Kent, Essex and Surrey and in some other parts of the country as well. In none of these cases has the problem gone beyond the capacity of the welfare authority to deal with it.
The hon. Member for Fulham said that representatives of the London County Council came to see my right hon. Friend. They got some advice about the action they could take. He said that they were doing that already. I do not know how far that may be so, but certainly we indicated to them the action which any local authority which has these powers can and should take. It should look, if necessary, to the purchase of empty houses. It should, perhaps, consider the use of a larger proportion of its relets for this purpose, though I recognise the difficulty the local authority has in giving priority to these people over those who have been on its waiting list, as the hon. Member pointed out.

Sir L. Plummer: That was exactly what my borough council had to do. When the Government insisted on all requisitioned properties being returned to the owners, my council had to take people off the waiting list.

Mr. Rippon: I am quite sure that is right. I am also sure that it is far better that this property should be purchased than that it should be returned to requisitioning.
Another thing we have to do is ensure that temporary and short-stay accommodation is provided. My right hon. Friend told London County Council that he would entertain compulsory purchase orders for vacant premises if necessary. None has so far been made, but we know that the Council has purchased a number of existing properties.
Another thing he said was that he thought that the Council had not done


all it could to make better use of vacant sites for providing temporary dwellings. A hundred have now been purchased and the first families have now been installed.
We in the Ministry recognise that we have got to be careful about urging local authorities to provide all this additional accommodation for the homeless. It might be possible to create a situation in which families turned up on the council's doorstep declaring themselves to be homeless and thus hoping to jump the queue over families who have been patiently on the waiting list and whose cases are, perhaps, more deserving. In certain cases, however, there may be need for more co-operation between housing authorities and welfare authorities in dealing with those evicted families who have a particularly good claim on their attention.
There are a number of other ways in which the matter can be dealt with on the long-term basis. We can give encouragement to families in council houses to move out to the new and expanded towns. We certainly should have wider use of differential rent schemes and loans for house purchase, because we want to give encouragement to the better-off council tenants to make their own arrangements and so house themselves. Many of these terribly bad cases referred to by hon. Members on both sides of the House are of the sort of people who ought to be in council house property, while some of those who are there already are in a position to make their own arrangements.
As far as house purchase is concerned, the amounts advanced by local authorities have risen very sharply indeed over the last few years. It is inevitable and right, I think, that councils which are housing authorities and also welfare authorities should be concerned particularly with families who are evicted or homeless for any reason. They should be concerned with old people or with larger families who have a particularly difficult problem. They ought to be trying all the time to make better use of their accommodation and trying to encourage people to move out of accommodation they no longer need—accommodation, perhaps, too large for their requirements now. This would allow more of the larger families who represent a particularly difficult problem to be allowed to move in.
I am quite sure it is not sensible to base consideration of this question on the Rent Act. We ought to bear in mind that one real difficulty is that rents were so distorted that accommodation has unnecessarily deteriorated in places like Islington over the last forty years. Our attention is naturally concentrated on the position of those who moved out, but we should also consider the position of those who move in, taking care to strike a fair balance. Before the Rent Act it was impossible—

It being Five o'clock, Mr. SPEAKER adjourned the House without Question put, till Tuesday, 1st May, pursuant to the Resolution of the House of 12th April.